On the energy losses of electrons in molecular nitrogen

Abstract

Very numerous critical potential determinations of atoms have been made, but there is a distinct lack of such data regarding molecules. The work to be described is a contribution to remedying this deficiency for nitrogen. It will be useful here to state the kind of molecular processes which our apparatus will recognize. There is first of all molecular excitation and ionization—as in the case of the ato —complicated, however, in excitation by the fact that there is not only the possibility of a change of electronic energy, but also of vibrational and rotational energies. In these experiments the resolving power of the apparatus is only adequate in the recognition of electronic and vibrational energy changes. So that only excitations from the lowest vibrational level of the normal electronic state to vibrational levels of higher electronic states will, in this paper, be considered.