Molecular Dynamics for State-to-State Kinetics of Non-Equilibrium Molecular Plasmas: State of Art and Perspectives

The theoretical prediction of molecular plasma features in non-equilibrium conditions relys on the knowledge of the microscopic collisional dynamics. The state-to-state kinetic approach in fact requires complete sets of cross-sections for the main reaction channels, including their dependence on the internal degrees of freedom. in this paper, the main three classes (electron-molecule, atom-molecule, and gas-surface interaction) of elementary processes have been considered, reviewing old and recent results for hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen molecular plasmas. Within each class selected processes have been discussed, summarizing the evidences of theoretical investigation and validating different methods by comparison with available experiments. Future achievements are outlined moving to polyatomic systems, of great interest in many technological plasma-chemical systems.