COLLISIONAL REDISTRIBUTION IN SR-HE SPIN-CHANGING ENERGY-TRANSFER COLLISIONS - FINAL-STATE ALIGNMENT

We have measured the product alignment resulting from the collisional redistribution of polarized light in Sr-He inelastic spin-changing energy transfer collisions. The experimental results are in good agreement with the predictions of an analytic theoretical model, based on a standard orbital-locking and following approximation, but generalized to this inelastic collision process. The good agreement indicates a clear understanding of the energy transfer dynamics in this case, and suggests that this simple analytic approach may be generalized to a much broader range of collisional phenomena. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.