Alignment dependence of the amidogen chemiluminescence in the reaction of argon(3P) atoms with the aligned ammonia molecules

Abstract

An alignment dependence of the NH{sub 2}(A-X) chemiluminescence was studied in the reaction of the aligned NH{sub 3} molecules and the metastable Ar({sup 3}P) atoms by using hexapole state selection. The NH{sub 2} emission intensities were analyzed by a hard-sphere model for the NH{sub 3} molecule. The ratio of the emission cross sections for the head-on attack and the side-on attack was found to be {sigma}{sub h}/{sigma}{sub s} = 1.2 {plus minus} 0.2. The observed alignment dependence is discussed in terms of the interaction between molecular orbitals of NH{sub 3} and the atomic orbital of Ar({sup 3}P).