C-R Modeling of Ar Plasmas: Low Temperature Validation

We focus on the Collisional-Radiative (C-R) modeling as applied mainly in the Stationary Plasma Thruster (SPT) spectroscopic diagnostics. After a brief introduction, we describe the main structure of the statistical equations set, some of the atomic data often entering in the C-R model and the more common versions of the latter. For the rare gases, principal SPT propellants, we discuss the cross sections and the corresponding rates for the main electron collision processes, the e- atom (ion) ionization and e- - ion photo-recombination and also the radiative spontaneous deexcitation. We further present our spectroscopic measurements, address the important issue of our models validation and give our conclusions.