Dr. Robert Parson is supported by a grant from The Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to study the dynamics of energy transfer which occurs in molecular collisions. Collision-induced energy transfer plays an important role in many physical and chemical problems such as population inversion in chemical lasers, and the spectroscopy of stellar atmospheres. Dr. Parson will study collisions between rare-gas atoms and highly rotationally excited diatoms, emphasizing the strong "quasiresonant" correlation between vibrational and rotational energy tranfer that has been seen in recent experiments. A collision-induced resonance theory for the final state distributions will be developed and tested. Subsequent studies will extend this approach to diatom-diatom collisions. Studies of polyatomic collisions will emphasize the breakdown of the distinction between vibrational and rotational energy transfer.
