ABSTRACT
In this chapter we attempt to lay out the foundation of the phenomenology of charged particle transport in gases. We are primarily concerned with electrons, although ions are also covered briefly. We leave the more detailed description of transport theory for one of the later chapters; here we describe aspects of transport that may be understood from a phenomenological consideration of the charged particles either in the real or in velocity space. We derive the corresponding velocity distributions and transport (swarm) properties and some of their basic relationships. We also derive general equilibrium distributions of charged particles in real and velocity space in thermal equilibrium.
