The Electrical Conductivity of an Ionized Gas

Authors:
  • LSLyman Spitzer
    Lyman Spitzer
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Abstract
The interaction term in the Boltzmann equation for an ionized gas is expressed as the sum of two terms: a term of the usual form for close encounters and a diffusion term for distant encounters. Since distant encounters, producing small deflections, are more important than close encounters, consideration of only the diffusion term gives a reasonably good approximation in most cases and approaches exactness as the temperature increases or the density decreases. It is shown that in evaluating the coefficients in this diffusion term, the integral must be cut off at the Debye shielding distance, not at the mean interionic distance.

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