Long-range interaction effects in a formation of dipole-bound anions induced by collisions of Rydberg atoms with polar molecules

- Studies of dipole-bound anion formation in collisions of Rydberg atoms with molecules are reported.
- The importance of the long-range interaction effects in such processes is demonstrated.
- Cross sections reveal strong dependences on the principal and orbital quantum numbers.
- Present theory is compared with experiment and calculations performed using previous models.

We report results of theoretical studies of dipole-bound anion formation reactions in collisions of polar molecules CH3NO2,CH3CN, and C3H4O3 with Rydberg atoms Cs(ns),Xe(nf), and Rb(nl) (l = 0, 3, and n − 1). It is shown that the inclusion of the long-range interaction effects into the calculations of the Rydberg-covalent-ionic coupling terms is crucial for a reliable quantitative description of such processes. A particular attention is paid to the comparison of the results obtained with the calculations performed using previous models and with the experiment.

n-dependences of the cross sections for ion-pair formation in collisions of Rb(nl) and CH3CN at different values of l.58