A comparison of experimental and theoretical electron energy distribution functions in an argon GyM plasma

A joint experimental/theoretical investigation on the characteristics of argon plasmas produced in GyM magnetic linear device has been carried out, comparing the measured electron energy distribution function (EEDF) with the distribution resulting from a self-consistent state-to-state kinetic model coupling the chemistry of inelastic and reactive collisional processes with the Boltzmann equation for free electrons. A preliminary comparison between the theoretically simulated and experimentally measured electron temperature shows a reasonable agreement.