Crossed-Beam Study of the Reactive Asymmetry of Oriented Methyl Iodide Molecules with Rubidium

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Abstract
A crossed molecular‐beam study of the reactive asymmetry of oriented methyl iodide molecules reacting with rubidium is described. The velocity‐selected molecular beam of CH3I is focused by an inhomogeneous electric six‐pole field; the CH3I molecules are then oriented with respect to the incoming atomic beam of Rb by means of a homogeneous, weak, electric field. Measurements of the intensity of the RbI product have been made at various laboratory scattering angles as a function of the relative alignment of the CH3I with respect to the incident relative velocity vector. A computer analysis of the data has shown that the differential reactive scattering cross section (in the backward center‐of‐mass direction) for the “favorable” CH3I alignment exceeds that for the “unfavorable” alignment by a factor of 4 or more. A simple hardsphere model, approximating methyl iodide as a partially reactive sphere, accounts for many of the important features of the observations.