Validity of central field approximations in molecular scattering: Low energy CO–He collisions

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Abstract
Close coupled calculations have been carried out on collisions of helium and carbon monoxide interacting via a theoretical interaction potential which is believed to accurately reproduce the true interaction of this system. These are compared with an equivalent set of calculations for the spherical average of this potential, V0. We conclude that the latter approximation holds reasonably well for transport property calculations but not for differential and total scattering cross sections. As a consequence, conservation of scattering cross section theorems that are based on V0 do not hold well.