Electron swarm transport coefficients in H2O - He mixtures: Experiment and calculations*

In this presentation we report recent measurements of electron swarm transport coefficients using the pulsed-Townsend technique for mixtures of water and helium over the range of applied fields E/N from 0-200Td. Comparison is made with transport coefficients calculated using a multi-term Boltzmann equation solution and recently proposed electron-water cross-section sets. This represents a new and more discriminative test on the accuracy and consistency of such sets. Negative differential conductivity is observed for a small window of mixture ratios, even though the pure gases themselves do not demonstrate NDC. Similar interesting effects are observed in the ionization rates as a function of the mixture ratios. The origin of these behaviours will be discussed.