Zur spektroskopischen Temperatur- und Dichtemessung von Plasmen bei Abwesenheit thermodynamischen Gleichgewichtes

After a discussion of the ionization formulae for both a steady-state and a transient plasma with and without thermodynamic equilibrium it is shown that for the practical application of these formulae the introduction of a non-Maxwellian velocity distribution function for the electrons is necessary in special cases, because the electrons can escape from the plasma without effecting a sufficiently high number of ionizing impacts. The influence of both the “Maxwell”- and the “Druyvesteyn”-distribution on the excitation, ionization, and recombination processes is treated quantitatively. The modification of the ionization formula due to three-body collisional recombination into excited states is discussed. It is emphasized that the normally unknown velocity distribution of the electrons can be obtained by measuring the free-bound recombination continuae.