Superelastic collisions under low temperature plasma and afterglow conditions: A golden rule to estimate their quantitative effects

A simple equation describing the formation of plateaux induced by superelastic collisions in the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) of low temperature and afterglow plasmas is derived. The EEDFs predicted from this equation are in good agreement with those obtained from the numerical solution of the full Boltzmann equation in the presence of excited states.