Electric glow discharges (glows) can be found almost everywhere, from atmospheric electricity to modern plasma technologies, and have long been the object of research.
They are described in a number of monographs written by the leading scientists.
Although those books have a well-deserved popularity, the fundamental foundations are mainly described on the basis of a fluid (hydrodynamic) approximation. In that approach the electron distribution function (EDF) depends on the local plasma parameters at a given point of space in a given time. However, under conditions of a gas-discharge plasma, the EDF is usually strongly non-equilibrium and the fluid approximation often cannot describe some important phenomena and processes even qualitatively.
The appropriate approach for describing such highly non-equilibrium systems
and phenomena is physical kinetics. In recent years, work in this area has progressed rapidly and a self-consistent kinetic description of the simplest glow discharges has become possible. The information about that approach is scattered across many articles and reviews. The main purpose of this book is to provide simple illustrations of the basic physical mechanisms and principles that determine the properties of those categories of discharges and to enable readers to explore modern literature and successfully participate in scientific and technical progress