Abstract
A quantum mechanical approach to almost resonant energy transfer by multipolar potentials in molecular collisions is presented. A distorted wave formalism is used, so that most of the limitations of earlier work are retained, but a natural cutoff for the Born approximation is derived which is smooth and physically reasonable. Analytic expressions for the differential and integral cross sections are obtained without a partial wave expansion. Several almost resonant VV energy transfer processes are used as examples, and predictions are given for processes involving CO2(00°2).