Collision dynamical information from pressure broadening measurements: Application to carbon monoxide

Abstract

Self- and helium-broadened carbon monoxide linewidths have been inverted to obtain state-to-state rate constants using the energy corrected sudden scaling formalism. Selected rotation–rotation and rotation-translation rate constants are discussed as a function of vibrational and rotational levels for the CO–CO and He–CO systems. We find that there is no dependence of the collision dynamics upon the vibrational state of the collision partners up to v=3. In addition, relaxation in both these systems is found to be dominated by rotation-translation collisions. However they are qualitatively different in their dynamical characteristics and result in signficantly varied state-to-state rate constants. An analysis of the effect of collision partners in the CO–X (X=CO, He, Ne, Ar, Xe, H2) system is presented. Comparisons are made with the available data in the literature.