Rotational excitation of symmetric top molecules by collisions with atoms: Close coupling, coupled states, and effective potential calculations for NH3–He

Abstract

The formalism for describing rotational excitation in collisions between symmetric top rigid rotors and spherical atoms is presented both within the accurate quantum close coupling framework and also the coupled states approximation of McGuire and Kouri and the effective potential approximation of Rabitz. Calculations are reported for thermal energy NH3–He collisions, treating NH3 as a rigid rotor and employing a uniform electron gas (Gordon–Kim) approximation for the intermolecular potential. Coupled states is found to be in nearly quantitative agreement with close coupling results while the effective potential method is found to be at least qualitatively correct. Modifications necessary to treat the inversion motion in NH3 are discussed briefly.