The Cross Sections for Rotational Excitation of H2 And D2 by Low Energy Electrons

Abstract

The J = 1 --+ 3 rotational cross section for H2 has been derived from an analysis of electron transport coefficients; A new technique is described for calculating the energy distribution functions taking into account superelastic collisions, since these must be included for an analysis of low energy transport data in D2. Unique rotational cross sections cannot be obtained for this gas from the experimental data available, but two sets of cross sections have been derived which are compatible with the existing data and are also in accord with recent theoretical calculations