Metastable Quasimolecules in Excited Gases

TL;DR

This paper investigates metastable quasimolecules formed by excited atoms in gases, calculating their energies and sizes, and shows they can significantly influence transport processes due to their long lifetimes.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of metastable quasimolecules with forbidden dipole transitions and estimates their lifetimes, highlighting their potential impact on gas dynamics.

Findings

Existence of metastable quasimolecules with forbidden dipole transitions

Calculated energies and sizes of these quasimolecules

Potential influence on transport processes in excited gases

Abstract

Quasimolecules, which consist of two differently excited atoms in a resonantly excited gas, are considered. The energy of dissociation and typical sizes of such molecules are calculated in the first order of quantum-mechanical perturbation theory with the help of the dipole-dipole interaction operator. It is shown that there exist metastable quasimolecules, whose dipole radiative transition to the ground state (two non-excited atoms) is forbidden. The lifetime of such molecules is estimated and it is shown that quasimolecules may considerably affect the transport processes in a resonantly excited gas.