THE INTERACTION STRENGTH DEPENDENCE OF DIATOMIC COLLISIONAL ENERGY-TRANSFER - A MOLECULAR-DYNAMICS STUDY

Molecular dynamics simulation is used to study the activation/deactivation mechanism in the unimolecular decomposition of a diatomic gas. The strength parameter-epsilon in the Lennard-Jones representation of the intermolecular potential is varied to reveal the dependence of the energy transfer rate on the strength of interaction in the collision complex. A dramatic increase is found with increasing-epsilon and the energy transferred per collision approaches the ergodic collision limit at high-epsilon.