Electromagnetic wave damping in a nonequilibrium aerosol plasma

Electromagnetic-wave propagation is considered for an aerosol in which the electron concentration is maintained only by photoelectric or thermionic emission from the aerosol particles. The nonequilibrium electron-velocity distribution is derived on the basis that the electron kinetic energy substantially exceeds the thermal energy of the gas molecules, and this is used to derive expressions for the conductivity in the cases of high-frequency and low-frequency electromagnetic fields. Allowance may be made for the delay in the aerosol particle temperature T/sub p/ relative to the gas temperature T/sub m/(T/sub p/>>T/sub m/) for a hot (about 2000 0K) rapidly expanding aerosol, which results in an increase in the absorption coefficient for a low-frequency wave by comparison with the case T/sub m/ = T/sub p/