Dissociation of hydrogen molecules in collisions with light alkali ions.: III. Comparison of experiment with a simple hard spheres model

Abstract

A simple hard spheres model is used to calculate cross sections for the dissociation of a light homonuclear molecule in collisions with an alkali ion. The results are analyzed in terms of the relative contribution of different types of binary collision sequences. In agreement with experiment the number of “simple” spectator collisions is found to depend strongly on the effective collision diameter. The model is shown to break down in the simulation of certain collision sequences and thus it cannot explain the measured inelastic differential cross section at all scattering angles. The model does work, however, for backward large angle scattering enar 180° for which the largest amount of experimental data is available. The model is used to extract potential parameters for the ion—atom two body interaction potential. These are in reasonable agreement with previous determinations.