Electron collisions in atmospheres

Abstract

Collisions with electrons from several sources are common throughout planetary atmospheres. While in most circumstances direct electron impact is less significant than solar radiation, electron collisions have a major influence on the chemistry driven by both photon and particle impact. This review addresses electron collisions in atmospheres, with emphasis on cases where electron impact drives, enhances, or otherwise interacts with chemical processes. Understanding of atmospheric processes typically involves computational simulation based on theory, remotely-sensed atmospheric data, atomic and molecular physics data and chemical reaction rates. These and the modelling techniques will therefore also be covered. An example of current and future work on electron impact on the hydroxyl radical (OH) is presented, where applications in both atmospheric studies and plasma medicine are important.

Keywords:

• electron impact
• integral cross sections
• atmospheres
• ionosphere
• planetary
• modelling
• atmospheric chemistry

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Australian Research Council for its support of this work through Discovery Project Grants [grant number DP160102787] and the Centres of Excellence programme [grant number CE0561389], and also Flinders University for its support over the years.

Notes

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.