| Abstract: | The special properties presented by the Boltzmann collision operator in the case of an induced-dipole interaction (Maxwellian interaction) between ions and neutrals are exploited to obtain in such case a proper solution of the Boltzmann equation for light ions in heavy gases in an electric field. Meanwhile it is proved that consideration of more than two terms of the spherical harmonic expansion of the ion velocity distribution requires to improve the usual accuracy of the terms deriving from the collision integral; vice versa, the improvement of the accuracy of the collision terms requires to retain more than two terms of the spherical harmonic expansion. The consistency of our procedure and results in the approximation neglecting the square of the ion-neutral mass ratio with respect to unity is discussed. Finally, the most significant velocity averages are calculated on the basis of the obtained ion distribution. In the limit of the above approximation they are shown to agree with Wannier's results. |
