THEORY OF COLLISIONAL ACTIVATION OF MACROMOLECULES - IMPULSIVE COLLISIONS OF ORGANIC IONS

In the first part of the paper, a simple model for impulsive energy transfer in a collision between a macromolecular ion and a gas atom is presented. The main result of the derivation is an equation that gives the connection between the amount of energy transferred in the collision and the angle by which the ion is scattered. In the second part, the predictions of the simple theory are compared with a set of computer simulations based on a more detailed molecular model. When small amounts of energy are transferred, the simple model gives results in agreement with the more detailed model. At higher energies, the results of the simple model deviate from those of the more detailed model.