Atomic and Molecular Collision Models and Data for Plasma Modeling*

Non-equilibrium swarm and plasma modeling are active areas of research for academic, industrial, energy, and safety applications, which requires input of atomic and molecular physics and data. Modeling swarms, plasmas and streamers are complex physics and computational problems that couple particle kinetics (including those due to photons), electric and magnetic fields, and sometimes plasma-material interactions, in order to understand the interplay between microscopic and macroscopic processes. Over the last decade or so, Monte Carlo particle-in-cell and Boltzmann solver codes have been used to study several aspects of these problems and are the primary tools of use to understand macroscopic plasma properties, such as particle fluxes and energies, electric currents, etc. However, a major uncertainty in these modeling tools is the availability and accuracy of the input collision and photon-absorption cross sections, which are particularly difficult to calculate for low-temperature plasmas, where near-neutral atoms and molecules, and excited state species are abundant.

In this talk we will overview the tools we utilize to generate atomic and molecular data, recommend new collision models for efficient application in Monte Carlo particle-in-cell codes, and showcase the impact of these new data and models in plasma or swarm simulations.