Mechanism of ballistic collisions

Ballistic collisions is a term used to describe atom-diatom collisions during which a substantial fraction of the initial relative translational energy is converted into the internal energy of the diatom. An exact formulation of the impulse approach to atom-diatom collisions is shown to be in excellent agreement with the experimental results for the CsF-Ar system at 1.1 eV relative translational energy for laboratory scattering angles of 30\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} and 60\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}. The differential cross section for scattering of CsF peaks at two distinct recoil velocities. The peak centered at the recoil velocity corresponding to elastic scattering has been called the elastic peak. This peak is shown to consist of several hundred inelastic transitions, most involving a small change in internal energy. The peak near the center-of-mass (c.m.) velocity is called the ballistic peak and is shown to consist of highly inelastic (ballistic) transitions. It is shown that transitions comprising the ballistic (elastic) peak occur when an Ar atom strikes the F (Cs) end of CsF. When one is looking along the direction of the c.m. velocity, the signal from a single transition, which converts about 99.99% of the relative translational energy into internal energy, may be larger than the signal from any other ballistic transition by as much as an order of magnitude. This property may be used to prepare state-selected and velocity-selected beams for further studies. It is also pointed out that the ballistic peak may be observed for any atom-molecule system under appropriate circumstances.