Influence of metastable atoms on the formation of nonlocal EDF, electron reaction rates, and transport coefficients in argon plasma

The influence of metastable atoms on formation of the nonlocal electron distribution function (EDF) and other characteristics of gas-discharge plasma in argon is investigated in this paper. Superelastic collisions of electrons with metastable atoms strongly affect the shape of the EDF, the behavior of reaction rate constants, and other plasma characteristics. An interesting phenomenon of EDF replication emerges with a period of excitation threshold; this effect can increase the rate constants of excitation and ionization processes by several orders of magnitude, especially at the periphery of the plasma volume. Thus, collisions between electrons and metastable atoms are important in the formation of a nonlocal EDF, and neglecting them can lead to large errors in calculations of plasma characteristics.