Using support from the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program, Professor Siska is using crossed molecular beam techniques to investigate the interactions of metastable excited rare gas atoms with various atomic and molecular targets. The results yield information on the precise nature of the intermolecular forces acting during collisions. Measurements are being made of the angular distributions for elastic, inelastic, and ionizing collisions. For ionized targets, a new facility is being used to extract the energy spectrum of the emitted electrons as a function of the initial collision energy. Regiospecific data on the intermolecular forces will be obtained from the orbital- and state-specific electron energy distributions.
