Toward a frame-work for calculating comprehensive electron collision data sets for low-temperature plasma modeling

Modeling low-temperature non-equilibrium plasmas with Monte Carlo particle-in-cell and Boltzmann solver codes requires comprehensive sets of collision cross sections. However, these cross sections are particularly difficult to calculate for low-temperature plasmas, where near-neutral atoms and molecules, and excited state species are abundant. As a result, in general, comprehensive sets of cross sections do not exist in the literature.

 

Recently we have developed a universal frame-work for quickly calculating electron-impact excitation and ionization cross sections of ground and excited state diatomic molecules and diatomic molecular ions. In conjunction with the Los Alamos suite of atomic physics codes, this new capability is moving us toward a comprehensive description of the collisional processes required for modeling low-temperature plasmas. Here we present a range of comparisons of the new results with state-of-the-art theory, and investigate the effect of including comprehensive collision data in plasma kinetic simulations.