Dissociative excitation of N$sub 2$ by electron impact: translational spectroscopy of long-lived high-Rydberg fragment atoms

Journal Article · Thu Nov 15 04:00:00 EST 1973 · J. Chem. Phys., v. 59, no. 10, pp. 5225-5241

OSTI ID:4318336

Smyth, K C; Schiavone, J A; Freund, R S

Nitrogen atoms in long-lived high-Rydberg states have been produced in the dissociative excitation of N/sub 2/ by electron impact Four principal features were found in the time-of-flight distributions of the dissociation fragments and in the corresponding translational (kinetic) energy distributions. Appearance potentials and excitation functions were measured for high-Rydberg atoms with known and well-defined translational energies; for the slowest high- Rydberg fragments the excitation function exhibits sharp, resonancelike structure near threshold. The core-ion model of high-Rydberg dissociation, which treats the Rydberg electron essentially as a spectator in the dissociation process, is described and used to interpret the data. Observed dislociation limits are assigned as one fragment being an N/sup +/ core surrounded by a high-Rydberg electron and the other fragment being a nitrogen atom or ion. In addition, the high-Rydberg translational energy distributions are in reasonable qualitative agreement with kinetic energy distributions of N/sup +/ measured by dissociative ionization experiments. These observations provide substantial support for the core-ion model. The available data on the dissociative core-ion states of N/sub 2//sup +/ are discussed extensi vely. However, no unique assignments can be made for the molecular high--Rydberg states which participate in the dissociation processes. (auth)

• Research Organization: Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974
• NSA Number: NSA-29-022280
• OSTI ID: 4318336
• Journal Information: J. Chem. Phys., v. 59, no. 10, pp. 5225-5241, Journal Name: J. Chem. Phys., v. 59, no. 10, pp. 5225-5241; ISSN JCPSA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

*NITROGEN-- ELECTRON-MOLECULE COLLISIONS
ELECTRON BEAMS
ENERGY SPECTRA
KINETIC ENERGY
N60400* --Physics (Atomic & Molecular)--Collision Phenomena
NITROGEN IONS
TIME-OF-FLIGHT METHOD