KINETIC-THEORY OF SOUND-PROPAGATION IN A DISSOCIATING GAS

The effects on the propagation of sound of dissociation and recombinat ion in a diatomic gas are discussed on the basis of kinetic theory for such a gas. A perturbation theory is used in which the perturbation i ncorporates the collision operator for reactions and the convective te rm in the Boltzmann equation. Consequently the sound frequency need no t be small relative to the reaction rate, so the results describe the transition between slow and fast reaction regimes.