Electric field determination in air plasmas from intensity ratio of nitrogen spectral bands: II. Reduction of the uncertainty and state-of-the-art model

Abstract

Abstract An established and widely used method for remote electric field determination is based on the ratio of the spectral band intensities of the first negative and second positive spectral systems of molecular nitrogen which does, however, require theoretically or experimentally obtained dependence <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>E</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="true">/</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> . The aim of this work is to reduce the overall uncertainty in the theoretical dependence <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>E</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="true">/</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> calculated in part I of this work. We present an in-depth review of the kinetic and cross section data that are available in literature for the most influential processes. By tracking the historical evolution of the kinetic data, their cross-validation by independent authors and by taking into account advances in the experimental methods, we separate datasets that have not been rendered inaccurate by later works. By doing so, we reduce the uncertainty of the theoretical <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>R</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>E</mml:mi> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo stretchy="true">/</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mi>N</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> dependence and propose corresponding confidence band to be used by scientific community.