Numerical tabulation of ion-atom potentials relevant to ionic mobilities : an approach based on the electron gas model

Abstract

A statistical treatment within the uniform electron gas model is employed to compute adiabatic interaction energies between alkali ions and heavy rare-gas atoms. An effective potential form is put forward for the treatment of induced distortion contributions to the interaction and a physically intuitive way is suggested to evaluate it for each specific partner.The results for heavy ions are in good agreement both with experiments and with previously computed curves. Deeper potential wells are found for the Lithium cation interacting wirh Ar, Kr, Ne and Xe whereas the correct behaviour is exhibited by the repulsive regions and by the attractive tails of their interactions.The rapidity and efficiency of the present modal in computing ion-neutral potential curves is pointed out and its feasibility for evaluating transport cross sections for gas mixtures containing ions is discussed.For this purpose, an extensive tabulation of such potentials is presented for Li, Na and K ions interacting with Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe neutral atoms.