Kinetics of electronic-excitation relaxation in dense inert gases and formation of excimer molecules

The approximately steady-state properties are derived for the plasmas which are produced by intense electron beams in high-purity inert gases (Ar, Kr, and Xe). The primary mechanism for the conversion of the beam energy is the thermalization of the atoms which are formed during dissociative recombination of molecular ions with electrons. Because of the intense ionizational flux from the excited levels, the population distribution of these levels is of an ionizational nature, with pronounced population changes with respect to the ground state of the atom and the continuum