Interference effects in rotational transitions of symmetric tops

✍ Scribed by D. Poppe

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1973
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 487 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2614
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2614(73)87063-0

✦ Synopsis

Collision-induced rotational transitions of molecules +A/ have cross sections, whose magnitude depends strongly on the sign of A/ (I'+/-asymmetry"). It is shown that the physical origin of this effect is quantum-mechanical interference, and that it is expected to occur in any symmetric top molecule. To this end previous calculations in Born's approsimation of such cross sections pertaining to the special case of homonuclear diatomics in a %I-state are extended to the general case of the symmetric top.