Mario Capitelli – författare

Fundamental Aspects of Plasma Chemical Physics: Transport develops basic and advanced concepts of plasma transport to the modern treatment of the Chapman-Enskog method for the solution of the Boltzmann transport equation.

The book invites the reader to consider actual problems of the transport of thermal plasmas with particular attention to the derivation of diffusion- and viscosity-type transport cross sections, stressing the role of resonant charge-exchange processes in affecting the diffusion-type collision calculation of viscosity-type collision integrals.

A wide range of topics is then discussed including (1) the effect of non-equilibrium vibrational distributions on the transport of vibrational energy, (2) the role of electronically excited states in the transport properties of thermal plasmas, (3) the dependence of transport properties on the multitude of Saha equations for multi-temperature plasmas, and (4) the effect of the magnetic field on transport properties.

Throughout the book, worked examples are provided to clarify concepts and mathematical approaches.

This book is the second of a series of three published by the Bari group on fundamental aspects of plasma chemical physics. The first book, Fundamental Aspects of Plasma Chemical Physics: Thermodynamics, is dedicated to plasma thermodynamics; and the third, Fundamental Aspects of Plasma Chemical Physics: Kinetics, deals with plasma kinetics.

Fundamental Aspects of Plasma Chemical Physics - Thermodynamics develops basic and advanced concepts of plasma thermodynamics from both classical and statistical points of view.

After a refreshment of classical thermodynamics applied to the dissociation and ionization regimes, the book invites the reader to discover the role of electronic excitation in affecting the properties of plasmas, a topic often overlooked by the thermal plasma community.

Particular attention is devoted to the problem of the divergence of the partition function of atomic species and the state-to-state approach for calculating the partition function of diatomic and polyatomic molecules. The limit of ideal gas approximation is also discussed, by introducing Debye-Huckel and virial corrections.

Throughout the book, worked examples are given in order to clarify concepts and mathematical approaches.

This book is a first of a series of three books to be published by the authors on fundamental aspects of plasma chemical physics.  The next books will discuss transport and kinetics.

Describing non-equilibrium "cold" plasmas through a chemical physics approach, this book uses the state-to-state plasma kinetics, which considers each internal state as a new species with its own cross sections. Extended atomic and molecular master equations are coupled with Boltzmann and Monte Carlo methods to solve the electron energy distribution function. Selected examples in different applied fields, such as microelectronics, fusion, and aerospace, are presented and discussed including the self-consistent kinetics in RF parallel plate reactors, the optimization of negative ion sources and the expansion of high enthalpy flows through nozzles of different geometries.

The book will cover the main aspects of the state-to-state kinetic approach for the description of nonequilibrium cold plasmas, illustrating the more recent achievements in the development of kinetic models including the self-consistent coupling of master equations and Boltzmann equation for electron dynamics.To give a complete portrayal, the book will assess fundamental concepts and theoretical formulations, based on a unified methodological approach, and explore the insight in related scientific problems still opened for the research community.