MULTITERM CALCULATIONS OF ELECTRON-ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS AND TRANSPORT-COEFFICIENTS IN AR AND HG .1. ATOMS AT REST

Accurate calculations of energy distributions and transport coefficients have been made in Ar and Hg by solutions of the Boltzmann equation for atoms at rest. The low values of E/N permit to neglect inelastic collisions and have a large fraction of electrons in the energy regions where the cross-sections are strongly dependent on the electron energy. Comparisons between different techniques of solution with various approximation orders have shown that the diffusion coefficient perpendicular to the electric field in Ar is the only quantity which, in practice, requires to have recourse to multiterm approaches. © 1990 Società Italiana di Fisica.