A CONSISTENT MODEL OF THE LOW-PRESSURE OXYGEN POSITIVE-COLUMN

The theory of the oxygen positive column at low and moderate pressures is extended to consistently include the continuity and transport equations for the charged particles e, O2+, O- and the detaching species O2(a1 DELTA), O3P. The radial dependence of the gas density is taken into account by resorting to measured values of the gas temperature as a function of the radius. The solutions of these equations provide the concentrations of the species as functions of the radius and the maintenance electric field for the positive column as a function of pressure and discharge current. The predictions are shown to agree well with experiment.