Ar-O2 rotationally inelastic collisions

Abstract

In a crossed molecular beams Ar-O2 time-of-flight scattering experiment individual rotational state-to-state transitions are observed up to values of Δj = 18. For the collision energy Ec.m. = 97 meV a maximum of excitation is found in the neighborhood of the 1→13 rotational transition. In the total differential cross section fast diffraction oscillations could experimentally be resolved. In addition, a new method is explored for extracting cross section information on specific rotational transitions from measurements of appropriate out-of-plane and in-plane total differential laboratory cross sections only. A preliminary comparison of the experiment with theory indicates a need for substantial corrections in the anisotropy of the most recent Ar-O2 potential by as much as 0.2 Å. © 1986 American Institute of Physics.