Theoretical treatment of the associative ionization reaction between two laser-excited sodium atoms. Direct and indirect processes

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Abstract
Calculations are presented for the associative ionization of two Na(3p) atoms, at collision energies varying between 10 and 110 meV, in the framework of a MQDT treatment. Doubly-excited diabatic molecular states of various symmetries are considered. The inclusion of the indirect ionization process via population of singly-excited Rydberg states leads to a reduction of the cross sections. The authors show that the ionization proceeds mainly via a 3 Sigma u+ state and they suggest the possible contribution of a 1 Delta g state at collision energies below 30 meV. A good agreement is obtained with experiment both for the energy variation of the cross section and for the relative population of the vibrational levels.