Reactions of Highly Excited Atoms with Molecules A^**+BC→A⁺+B+C^-

Abstract

Reactions of highly excited atoms (A ** ) with molecules (BC) \begin{aligned} \text{A$^{**}$}+\text{BC}{\rightarrow}\text{A$^{+}$}+\text{B}+\text{C$^{-}$}, \label{eq1} \end{aligned} are studied. It is theoretically shown that the cross section for (1) can be approximately expressed in terms of that for dissociative attachment of electrons to molecules BC, namely, \begin{aligned} \mathrm{e}+\text{BC}{\rightarrow}\text{B}+\text{C$^{-}$}. \end{aligned} The rate constants and the angular distributions of the products for some reactions including \begin{aligned} \text{K$_{\text{r}}$$^{**}$}+\text{CCl$_{4}$}{\rightarrow}\text{K$_{\text{r}}$$^{+}$}+\text{CCl$_{3}$}+\text{Cl$^{-}$}, \label{eq2} \end{aligned} are predicted. The rate constant for reaction (2) is found to be of the order of the magnitude 10 -7 cm 3 /sec. Together with the results of the previous papers (M. Matsuzawa: J. chem. Phys. 55 (1971) 2685; J. Phys. Soc. Japan 32 (1972) 1088) it is pointed out that the measurements of reactions of highly excited atoms with molecules give useful information on the inelastic scattering of a slow electron by the molecules.