Adiabatic analysis of atomic collisions. II. Properties of velocity-coupled channels

Abstract

The connection between wave functions describing inelastic collisions and a complete set of standing wave functions, expanded in a Born-Oppenheimer-type base, is developed in terms of Jost functions generalized for application to velocity-coupled channels. The Jost functions represent conserved currents which include, in our case, contributions from nuclear motion. Several limiting cases of a recently developed post-adiabatic treatment are examined from the points of view of numerical applications as well as qualitative discussion. The example of a spinning particle traversing a magnetic field of variable direction is worked out.