Reactive Vibrational Deexcitation: The N + N2 and O + O2 Reactions

Abstract

In recent years it has become increasingly apparent that the characteristics of the gaseous flux around objects flying at hypersonic speed are sensitive to the nature and the efficiency of the involved elementary chemical reactions.[1] [2] [3] This situation is common to the modelling of all complex gas phase processes (e.g. lasers, cold plasmas, ionic sources, etc.[4]). Due to the non-equilibrium nature of these systems the reactive properties relevant to their description are the state-to-state detailed quantum cross sections. Detailed cross sections, in fact, individually depend on the different energetic modes and, therefore, can account for the actual energetic distribution of the components of the gaseous system.