Scattering of magnetically selected O(3P) atoms: Characterization of the low lying states of the heavy rare gas oxides

Abstract

Measurements of absolute integral elastic cross sections for scattering of O(³P) atoms, magnetically selected in their sublevels m_j=0, are reported at three collision energies in the thermal range for each of the target gases Ar, Kr, and Xe. Anisotropy effects, as measured by differences between cross sections with and without magnetic selection, are negligible for Ar, but of the order of a few percent for Kr and Xe: they show up in the glory structure of cross sections. These data and the dependence on velocity of cross sections without magnetic selection, suggest that in the regions of the very shallow van der Walals wells of KrO and XeO, Π‐type electrostatic interactions are stronger than Σ ones.