Line broadening coefficient calculations for methane perturbed by nitrogen

Abstract

We report semiclassical line broadening calculations for methane perturbed by nitrogen at room temperature. For this, we have developed a symmetrized version of the Robert and Bonamy theory. The interaction potential was built from electrostatic (octopole and hexadecapole for methane, quadrupole for nitrogen) and atom–atom contributions. The relative (classical) trajectories of the molecules were computed in the frame of the usual parabolic model, through analytical formula. High orders of developments had to be used for the short range molecular interactions. As a consequence, a combination of symbolic computation and source code generation was employed to implement practical calculations. We have compared our calculations to the most recent experimental data available in the ν 4 band, the ν 3 band and the octad spectral region of methane.