Electronic Transitions in Slow Collisions of Atoms and Molecules. I.

Abstract

The semiclassical approximation is systematically applied to the study of electronic transitions in near-adiabatic collisions of atoms and molecules. The use of the eikonal approximation permits the coupled equations of scattering theory to be reduced to one-dimensional equations defined along classical trajectories. The theory for rearrangement collisions is developed into a form appropriate for use with the eikonal description of heavy-particle motion.