Vibrational state-to-state modeling of a recombining nitrogen/argon plasma

A vibrational state-to-state kinetic model is developed and compared with recent measurements performed in a nitrogen/argon recombining plasma at atmospheric pressure. It is shown that the flow experiences high vibrational non-equilibrium, which slows down the recombination process of nitrogen atoms. The present state-to-state model overpredicts the experimental atomic nitrogen densities