2025/11/26 by Bernard Parent, Parent, Bernard, Felipe Martín Rodríguez Fuentes +1
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Plasma Diagnostics and Applications #Gas Dynamics and Kinetic Theory #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2511.21944
Accurate prediction of electron temperature (T\rm e) in non-equilibrium plasma flows is critical for applications ranging from hypersonic flight to plasma-assisted combustion. We recently proposed a thermodynamically consistent model for vibrational-electron (V-e) heating [Phys. Fluids 37, 096141 (2025)] which enforces convergence of T\rm e to the vibrational temperature (T\rm v) at equilibrium. While the original derivation assumed electron energy loss was dominated by collisions with ground-state molecules, this Letter presents a rigorous generalization of the model. We demonstrate that the heating-to-cooling ratio exp(θ\rm v/T\rm e-θ\rm v/T\rm v) with θ\rm v the characteristic vibrational temperature remains valid even when electron cooling interactions with vibrationally excited states are included. This derivation removes the previous constraint assuming ground-state dominance, thereby extending the model's validity to plasma flows where vibrationally excited populations contribute significantly to electron cooling.