Vibrational levels in collisions of (N)++++ with H

The energies of bound vibrational levels supported by the attractive potential well in the interaction of a neutral hydrogen atom and a multiply-charged nitrogen atom were calculated in the diabatic representation.

The rates of depopulation through predissociation to other (ion-ion) channels were evaluated and compared with the rate of spontaneous emission.

This charge transfer system can support vibrational levels in the neutral channel but, because of fast predissociation, they are only likely to be observed by measurements of kinetic energy loss.