Temporal evolution of excited level populations in a high-velocity argon plasma flow

A simplified collisional-radiative model is applied to a high velocity plasma flow through the arcjet nozzle to investigate the temporal evolution of excited level population densities in the selected spatial positions inside arcjet thruster. Computations are carried out for various sets of input parameters such as electron temperature, electron number density, atom temperature, and pressure. The numerical results illustrate that the extent of the ionization-recombination non-equilibrium is strongly dependent on the electron temperature and pressure, and is significantly affected by resonance radiation.