skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Dynamics of inelastic collisions of electronically excited rare gas atoms

Conference · · AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (USA)
OSTI ID:5989520
 [1]
  1. Department of Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven (The Netherlands)

Recent advances in the field of reactive and inelastic schattering of electronically excited rare gas atoms in metastable R*{l brace}(np){sup 5}(n+1)s{r brace} and shortlived R**{l brace}(np){sup 5}(n+1)p{r brace} states are discussed in case studies of the relevant processes: excimer formation, excitation transfer, Penning ionization and intramultiplet mixing. For reactive scattering the fine structure dependence of (KrBr) excimer formation is studied, showing that the propensity for core state conservation depends strongly on the halogen donor used. As a prototype of excitation transfer collisions the Ar*({sup 3}P{sub 0,2})--N{sub 2} system is analysed with respect to electronic, vibrational and rotational excitation. Vibrational excitation is well understood in terms of a Landau Zener type semiclassical model: the two observed rainbow singularities in the rotational distribution lead to a classical description of scattering on a hard shell with both a P{sub 2}--and a P{sub 4}--anisotropy. For Penning ionization new insight is given for the well-studied Ne*({sup 3}P{sub 0,2})--Ar system. Ab-initio calculations of the auto-ionization width confirm the validity of a simple two-state basis model for the metastable states.

OSTI ID:
5989520
Report Number(s):
CONF-890708-; CODEN: APCPC; TRN: 91-008516
Journal Information:
AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (USA), Vol. 205:1; Conference: 16. international conference on the physics of electronic and atomic collisions, New York, NY (USA), 25 Jul - 1 Aug 1989; ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English