Product Internal State Distributions from Interactions of Metastable Ar with N2

Abstract

Internal energy state distributions of the products from reactions of metastable Ar(3P2.0) atoms with N2(X 1Σg+) molecules have been computed from a statistical phase space treatment of the interactions. Calculated rotational and vibrational distributions have been compared with those measured in recent spectroscopic experiments involving metastable Ar atoms. For strongly exothermic reactions producing N2(B 3Πg, v′, J′) molecules, the computed vibrational distribution is significantly broader than that measured experimentally. The corresponding vibrational and rotational distributions calculated for slightly exothermic N2(C 3Πu, v′, J′) channels are in qualitative accord with experimental distributions; however, some features present in the experimental product distributions are not reproduced by the statistical model.