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Resonant scattering of highly vibrationally excited and aligned D2 in cold collisions with Ne has recently been probed experimentally using the Stark-induced adiabatic Raman passage technique [Perreault et al., J. Chem. Phys. 157, 144301 (2022)]. A partial-wave analysis and numerical fitting of the experimental data attributed the measured angular distribution to an l = 2 shape resonance near Ec/kB = 1 K (≈0.7 cm−1). Here, we report the computation of a new potential energy surface for the Ne–H2 interaction suitable for the study of collisions between highly vibrationally excited H2/D2 with Ne as well as quantum scattering calculations of stereodynamics of D2 (v = 4, j = 2) + Ne collisions probing Δj = −2 rotational transition in D2. Our results show that collisions are dominated by a strong l = 5 resonance near 3 K (≈2.09 cm−1) and a weaker l = 6 resonance near 8 K (≈5.56 cm−1) and not an l = 2 resonance, as suggested in the analysis of the experimental data. A reasonable agreement between our calculations and the experiments is obtained only when an artificial energy cutoff is applied to the integral over the collision energy to exclude contributions from the l = 5 resonance while retaining contributions from l = 0, 1, and 2. However, our calculations do not support the claim that the measured angular distributions are dominated by a single l = 2 partial-wave resonance characteristic of orbiting collisions. 

We present a comprehensive quantum mechanical study of stereodynamic control of HD + He and D2 + He collisions that have been probed experimentally by Perreault et al. [J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 13, 10912 (2022)] using Stark-induced adiabatic Raman passage (SARP) techniques. Our calculations utilize a highly accurate full-dimensional H2 + He interaction potential with diagonal Born–Oppenheimer correction appropriate for HD and D2 isotopomers. The results show that rotational quenching of HD from j = 2 → j′ = 0 in v = 2, j = 2 → j′ = 1 in v = 2 and v = 4, and j = 4 → j′ = 3 in v = 4 is dominated by an l = 1 shape resonance located between 0.1 and 1.0 cm−1. For collision energies less than 0.1 cm−1, isotropic scattering prevails. An l = 1 resonance centered around 0.02 cm−1 is also found to dominate the j = 2 → j′ = 0 and j = 4 → j′ = 2 transitions in v = 4 for He–D2 collisions consistent with our prior studies of Δj = −2 transition in He + D2(v = 2, j = 2) collisions. Our analysis does not support the hypothesis of Perreault et al. [J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 13, 10912 (2022)] that a strong l = 2 resonance controls the angular distribution for Δj = −2 transition for both systems. Despite improvements in the development of the potential energy surface, a good agreement with SARP experiments for v = 2 is achieved only when contributions from collision energies less than 1.0 cm−1 were excluded in the computation of velocity averaged differential rate coefficients for both systems. This could be due to some uncertainties in the velocity spread in the experiment that employs co-propagation of the collision partners and possibly, the neglect of transverse velocities in the simulation of the experiment. 

Using full-dimensional quantum scattering calculations we show strong alignment effects in rotational quenching of HD in cold collisions with D₂. 

The effect of reactant alignment on the angular distributions of scattered products in atom-molecule scattering.