| Abstract: | We investigate a stationary one-dimensional ionization wave produced in a cold gas by an alternating electric field of frequency  (the field is parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave). Primary attention is given to specific features associated with the existence of a plasma resonance transition region at the front of the wave, where the electric-field amplitude and, therefore, the collisional ionization rate of the gas have a pronounced maximum at low electron-collision frequencies   . We investigate analytically and calculate numerically the parameters of the wave, which is described by a nonlinear diffusion equation. It is shown that a made of  ultrafast discharge propagation with ionization wave velocity V  for /0 can be established in the gas due to resonance effects even if the external electric field has amplitude far below breakdown.Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 38, No. 10, pp. 991–1000, October, 1995. |
