Nonadiabatic Elastic Scattering. II. The Scattering Process.

Abstract

Previous studies on nonadiabatic elastic scattering of high‐energy atomic beams have shown that the potentials which produce such scattering exhibit downward shifts (``Coriolis shifts'') due to high angular velocities during collisions. The elastic‐scattering cross sections produced by such potentials are studied in the present work, and it is found that the scattering tends to mask the presence of Coriolis shifts, so that the apparent potential which could be deduced from measurements of such scattering differs from the adiabatic potential by only small fractions of the Coriolis shifts. The 9‐eV discrepancy between the potential for He₂ at 0.5 Å, calculated in the adiabatic approximation, and the potential deduced from beam experiments cannot be accounted for in terms of Coriolis shifts.