APPLICATION OF INFORMATION STATISTICAL-THEORY TO THE DESCRIPTION OF THE EFFECT OF HEAT-CONDUCTION ON THE CHEMICAL-REACTION RATE IN GASES

The effect of the heat flux on the rate of chemical reaction in dilute gases is shown to be important for reactions characterized by high ac tivation energies and in the presence of very large temperature gradie nts. This effect, obtained from the second-order terms in the distribu tion function (similar to those obtained in the Burnett approximation to the solution of the Boltzmann equation), is derived on the basis of information theory. It is shown that the analytical results describin g. the effect are simpler if the kinetic definition for the nonequilib rium temperature is introduced than if the thermodynamic definition is introduced. The numerical results are nearly the same for both defini tions.