https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00101-8
Emission spectrum for polar super rotors in a cold buffer gas
Penn State University, Berks-Lehigh Valley College, Reading PA 19610-6009, USA
Corresponding author: a rcf6@psu.edu
Received:
25
March
2004
Published online:
10
August
2004
Rate coefficients for cold and ultracold He+CO collisions are used together with radiative lifetimes to investigate the relaxation of rotationally hot polar molecules in the presence of a cold or ultracold helium buffer gas. Starting with an initial Gaussian distribution of highly excited rotational states, such as might be produced by an optical centrifuge, the time-dependent relaxation of a collection of super rotors is studied and in the case of CO an emission spectrum which contains the collisional information is predicted as a function of buffer gas density. Implications for the experimental detection of cold and ultracold quasiresonant atom-diatom scattering is discussed.
PACS: 33.20.-t – Molecular spectra / 34.50.Ez – Rotational and vibrational energy transfer
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2004
