Dissociative attachment of an electron to a molecule: kinetic theory

TL;DR

This paper develops a kinetic theory model for dissociative electron attachment to molecules, analyzing equilibrium and stability for different particle distribution assumptions, providing insights into reaction dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic framework for dissociative attachment, comparing Maxwellian and Dirac delta distributions, and investigates their equilibrium properties and stability.

Findings

Equilibrium states are characterized for Maxwellian distributions.

Stability analysis shows conditions for stable dissociative attachment.

An approximate solution is constructed for Dirac delta distributions.

Abstract

Test particles interact with a medium by means of a bimolecular reversible chemical reaction. Two species are assumed to be much more numerous so that they are distributed according fixed distributions: Maxwellians and Dirac's deltas. Equilibrium and its stability are investigated in the first case. For the second case, a system is constructed, in view of an approximate solution.