Angular Momentum Partitioning in the Dissociation of Diatomic Molecules

Abstract

Abstract. We discuss recent experiments that study the transfer of angular momentum from a projectile to the residual target in collisions between the simple diatomic molecules H 2 and N 2 and spin-polarized electrons or circularly-polarized photons. We observe the fluorescence of both the atomic fragments and excited molecular states, and measure the circular polarization fraction of this light, P 3 . The incident electron energies range from 10 to 100 eV; the incident photon energies from 33 to 38 eV.