DETERMINATION OF THE RATE-CONSTANT OF TRIPLE RECOMBINATION OF ELECTRONS WITH ALUMINUM IONS FROM THE RESULTS OF BALLISTIC EXPERIMENTS

The temperature dependence of the rate constant of triple recombinatio n Al+ + e + N-2 --> Al + N-2 is found from the results of microwave me asurements of the electron number density in the wake behind an alumin um sphere flying in pure nitrogen in a ballistic path and from the sol ution of the inverse problem. It is found that the value of this const ant considerably exceeds that derived by the classical Thomson theory, which may be attributed to the formation of a long-lived autoionizati on state of aluminum atom.