PROPER CHOICE OF FINAL-STATE WAVE FUNCTION FOR DISSOCIATION AND ITS EFFECT ON ANGULAR DISTRIBUTION OF DISSOCIATION FRAGMENTS

The collisional dissociation of a homopolar diatomic molecule has been heretofore described in terms of a transition to the vibrational continuum of a single Born-Oppenheimer electronic state. This choice of final state, which is shown to be incorrect, yields dissociation-fragment angular distributions which are symmetric about an angle of 90 deg with respect to the beam. The proper final state yields angular distributions which need not possess this symmetry. © 1968 The American Physical Society.