Vibrational energy exchange in CO–CO collisions at low temperature

Abstract
The V–V exchange rates for CO in the ground electronic state have been measured at a temperature of 75 °K. The rates determined were for the processes CO(v=n)+CO(v=0) →CO(v=n−1)+CO(v=1)−ΔE, with 2?n⩽8. The values obtained are close to published 100 °K data, thus indicating an insensitivity to temperature. It appears that multirotational quantum jumps may be important in explaining the measured rates.