Reaction Dynamics of Translational and Electronic Excitation In Ca + SF6 Collisions

Relative values of the total chemiluminescence cross.section for the crossed molecular beamCa ∗ + SF 6 → CaF(A 2 Π )+SF 6reaction have been measured as a function of collision energy. Both metastable calciumatom states3 P 1 were produced by low voltage de-discharge while translational excitation of the SF 6 beam was achieved via the seeding technique. Whereas chemiluminescence yield from theCaF(A 2 Π ) wasobserved from both of the metastable atom reactions, no chemiluminescence signal was detected from theground atom reaction even though enough translational excitation was used to produc.e that excitedproduct. By changing the discharge conditions different metastable concentrations were produced tomeasure the state-to-state cross-section for both 3 P and 1 D reactions, as a function of collision energy, upto 0.6 eV. Laser induced fluorescence of the atomic 4s5s3 S 1 ← 4 s 4 p3 P J ∘( J = 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 ) lines have beenmeasured to account for the metastable population in the J = 1 level.