Low energy electron beam relaxation in gases in uniform electric fields

Abstract

The problem of low-energy electron beam relaxation in a gas between two parallel plates is extended to include accelerating or retarding electric fields. The problem is solved by two different methods, assuming that the elastic scattering is isotropic and neglecting the energy losses in elastic collisions. The first method is based on solution of the equation of moments of the electron velocity distribution function. The second uses a novel Monte-Carlo simulation scheme, which allows the authors to find various moments of the distribution function without the simplifying assumptions of the first method. The calculated current to the plates and the calculated density distribution between the plates obtained by the two methods are in good agreement.