Nonlocal ion transport in a weakly ionized nonequilibrium plasma

Nonlocal ion transport in a weakly ionized plasma with a strong electric field is analyzed. It is assumed that charge-exchange interactions are the main mechanism of ion scattering. Ion density and drift velocity are determined for nonuniform time varying electric field by using both the direct solution of the kinetic equation and the Chapman-Enskog-type approach. The ion mean velocity is given by an integro-differential operator applied to the electric field. Ion density and drift velocity exhibit resonant behaviour when ω≃kW0, which corresponds to the resonance between ions moving with average velocity W₀ and wave traveling with the phase velocity ω/k