Search

The perturbation seen in the experimental differential elastic scattering cross section for the 40 eV He(+) + Ne system was attributed to a single crossing of two intermolecular potential energy curves. A new theoretical treatment of the curve crossing problem, that of Delos and Thorson, is employed to obtain the crossing probabilities and phases associated with the crossing. These are determined by utilizing ab initio potentials involved in the crossing and are further used in a partial wave calculation of the cross section, which is compared with our experiment. The origin of the oscillatory structure observed in the differential cross section is discussed in semiclassical terms by defining the problem in terms of two pseudo-deflection functions. A rainbow effect is shown to be related to a particular feature (a maximum rather than a minimum) of these deflection functions.

The paper describes a practical application of Remler's (1971) method by which one constructs a set of phase shifts from high resolution measurements of the differential elastic scattering of protons by rare-gas atoms. These JWKB phase shifts are then formally inverted to determine the corresponding intermolecular potentials. The validity of the method is demonstrated by comparing an intermolecular potential obtained by direct inversion of experimental data with a fairly accurate calculation by Wolniewicz (1965).

The interatomic V(r) found by potential-model calculations is compared to an ab initio calculation of the intermolecular potential for NeH+ due to Peyerimhoff (1965). The reason for a rather significant difference in the two results is discussed, and a new method due to Remler (1971) involving Regge poles is applied. The method can be used to calculate the differential cross section, where the starting point for such calculations is based on intuition in light of the classical deflection function.

The perturbation seen in the experimental differential elastic-scattering cross section for the 40-eV He/+/ + Ne system has been attributed to a single crossing of two intermolecular potential-energy curves. A new theoretical treatment of the curve-crossing problem, namely, that of Delos and Thorson, is employed to obtain the crossing probabilities and phases associated with the crossing. These are determined by utilizing ab initio potentials involved in the crossing and are further used in a partial-wave calculation of the cross section, which is compared with our experiment. The origin of the oscillatory structure observed in the differential cross section is discussed in semiclassical terms by defining the problem in terms of two pseudo-deflection-functions. A rainbow effect is shown to be related to a particular feature (a maximum rather than a minimum) of these deflection functions.