Consider a monochromatic beam of atoms (mass , energy) incident on a target plasma (made of ions with mass ,temperatue , and flow velocity ). The beam atoms which scatter by an angle  from the plasma ions will have a Gaussian energy distribution, centered at:

with a full width at half-maximum of:

The energy spectrum of the scattered atoms is acquired by a12-channel electrostatic neutral particle analyzer. The ion flow velocity and temperature are deduced from the peak and the width of the measured energy spectrum.

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