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1. Theoretical study of the electron-induced vibrational excitation of H2O

   https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449361  

   Ayouz, Mehdi ; Faure, Alexandre ; Kokoouline, Viatcheslav ( July 2024 , Astronomy & Astrophysics)

   This study presents calculations for cross sections of the vibrational excitation of H2O (X1A1) via electron impact. The theoretical approach employed here is based on first principles only, combining electron-scattering calculations performed using the UK R-matrix codes for several geometries of the target molecule, three-dimensional (3D) vibrational states of H2O, and 3D vibrational frame transformation. The aim is to represent the scattering matrix for the electron incident of the molecule. The vibrational wave functions were obtained numerically, without the normal-mode approximation, so that the interactions and transitions between vibrational states assigned to different normal modes could be accounted for. The thermally averaged rate coefficients were derived from the calculated cross sections for temperatures in the 10–10 000 K interval and analytical fits for rate coefficients were also provided. We assessed the uncertainty estimations of the obtained data for subsequent applications of the rate coefficients in modelling the non-local thermal equilibrium (non-LTE) spectra of water in various astrophysical environments. 

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2. Cross sections for vibrational excitation and dissociative recombination of the CF3+ ion in collisions with low-energy electrons

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6595/ac54c0  

   Jiang, Xianwu ; Liu, Hainan ; Zhang, Ya ; Jiang, Wei ; Ayouz, Mehdi ; Kokoouline, Viatcheslav ( April 2022 , Plasma Sources Science and Technology)

   Abstract Cross sections for the vibrational excitation and dissociative recombination (DR) of the C F 3 + ion in collisions with electrons at low scattering energies are computed using a previously-developed approach combining the normal mode approximation for the vibrational states of the target ion and the UK R -matrix code for the evaluation of the scattering matrices at fixed geometries. The obtained cross section for the DR shows excellent agreement with the experimental data from the ASTRID storage ring. Thermally-averaged rate coefficients are obtained from the cross sections for temperatures 10–3000 K. 

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3. A wave function correction-based approach to the identification of resonances for vibrational perturbation theory

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0121915  

   Boyer, Mark A. ; McCoy, Anne B. ( October 2022 , The Journal of Chemical Physics)

   An approach for identifying resonances in vibrational perturbation theory calculations is introduced. This approach makes use of the corrections to the wave functions that are obtained from non-degenerate perturbation theory calculations to identify spaces of states that must be treated with degenerate perturbation theory. Pairs of states are considered to be in resonance if the magnitude of expansion coefficients in the corrections to the wave functions in the non-degenerate perturbation theory calculation is greater than a specified threshold, χ max . This approach is applied to calculations of the vibrational spectra of CH 4 , H 2 CO, HNO 3 , and cc-HOONO. The question of how the identified resonances depend on the value of χ max and how the choice of the resonance spaces affects the calculated vibrational spectrum is further explored for H 2 CO. The approach is also compared to the Martin test [J. M. L. Martin et al., J. Chem. Phys. 103, 2589–2602 (1995)] for calculations of the vibrational spectra of H 2 CO and cc-HOONO. 

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4. Rotational excitation of methanol in collisions with molecular hydrogen

   https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad3303  

   Dagdigian, Paul J. ( October 2023 , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society)

   This paper presents rate coefficients for transitions between rotational levels of the A-type and E-type nuclear spin modifications of methanol induced by collisions with molecular hydrogen. These rate coefficients are required for an accurate determination of methanol abundance in the interstellar medium, where local thermodynamic equilibrium conditions generally do not apply. Time-independent close-coupling quantum scattering calculations have been employed to calculate cross-sections and rate coefficients for the (de-)excitation of methanol in collisions with para- and ortho-H2. These calculations utilized a potential energy surface (PES) for the interaction of methanol with H2 recently computed by the explicitly correlated CCSD(T)-F12a coupled-cluster method that employed a correlation-consistent aug-cc-pVTZ basis. Rate coefficients for temperatures ranging from 3 to 250 K were calculated for all transitions among the first 76 rotational levels of both A-type and E-type methanol, whose energies are less than or equal to 170 K. These rate coefficients are compared with those by Rabli and Flower who carried out coupled-state calculations using a PES computed by second-order many-body perturbation theory. Simple radiative transfer calculations using the present set of rate coefficients are also reported and compared with such calculations using the rate coefficients previously computed by Rabli and Flower.

    

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5. Calculation of scattering resonances in ozone using stabilization method

   Elizaveta Grushnikova, Dmitri Babikov ( May 2019 , 50th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics APS Meeting)

   Study of the formation mechanism for atmospheric ozone helps to understand development of planetary atmosphere. We focus on anomalous mass-independent isotope effect. To understand the nature of isotope effect we consider all stages of ozone formation with commonly used mechanism at the low pressure regime - energy transfer (Lindemann) mechanism which involves metastable intermediate state O3*. O3* is described by scattering resonance in quantum mechanics. Particularly, scattering resonances can be calculated using of stabilization method of Clary. Stabilization approach implies that eigenvalues change as a functions of stabilization parameter (extension of the grid boundary). Based on quantum mechanical calculations of scattering resonances, kinetic rate coefficients were computed. Found resonance states were used for calculation of kinetics rate coefficients such as equilibrium and recombination coefficients for three pressure regimes (0.3, 30 and 3000 atm). Influence of pressure was estimated as well as contributions of other kinetic parameters - stabilization constant weight of each resonance, rotational, vibrational and electronic partition functions for molecule 686 O3. 

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