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.

Graphical abstractn-dependences of the cross sections for ion-pair formation in collisions of Rb(nl) and CH3CN at different values of l.Download high-res image (58KB)Download full-size image