Electrostatic probes for dense flowing plasma

Plasma flowing past a blunt-body electrostatic probe will stagnate at the probe surface in a region about the axis of symmetry. Multifluid equations descriptive of a quasineutral two-temperature argon plasma flowing past a probe are presented and solved numerically. The numerical results presented in Table I may be useful in interpreting experimental data from such a probe. © 1984 American Institute of Physics.