EFFECTS OF NON-BOLTZMANN VIBRATIONAL DISTRIBUTIONS ON ELECTRON-MOLECULE AND BIMOLECULAR REACTION-RATES

The role of non-equilibrium vibrational distributions in enhancing the rates of electron induced processes (dissociation, ionization and ele ctronic excitation) as well as the formation rate of NO from vibration ally excited nitrogen molecules and atomic oxygen is analyzed by compa rison with the corresponding rates obtained by using Boltzmann distrib utions. To this end we consider two Boltzmann distributions: the first one with the same energy as the non-equilibrium one, the second defin ed by the vibrational temperature of the 0-1 levels. Differences up to 100% are found in this theoretical comparison thus indicating the ina ccuracy of reducing non-equilibrium vibrational distributions to Boltz mann ones.