Comment on "Shock-wave-induced enhancement of optical emission in nitrogen afterglow plasma"

Sieffert [Phys. Rev. E 72, 066402 (2005)] have recently presented experimental results on optical emission enhancement at the front of shockwaves propagating in nitrogen afterglow. They claim that their results point to local heating of electrons at the shock front. In this Comment it is shown that the observed emission enhancement can be explained on the basis of a commonly accepted model of nitrogen discharge and afterglow, so that the use of unfounded assumption of local electron heating is not required.