Mechanism for anomalous relaxation in shock waves in inert gases

Several elementary processes are incorporated into the anomalous-relaxation (AR) mechanism which show that the observed features in the distributions of the gasdynamic properties are due to AR. These processes are the absorption by molecular ions of light emitted from the equilibrium zone behind the shock wave, the conversion of the internal energy of these ions into kinetic energy (in spontaneous decay or through dissociative recombination), and an increase in the electron energy through inelastic energy exchange.