Rotational Transitions in the N₂⁺ Ion Induced by Collisions with Helium Atoms in Cold Helium Plasmas. A Quasiclassical Trajectory Study

Abstract

Cross‐sections of state‐to‐state rotational transitions in electronically ground‐state 14N2+(XΣg+) ions induced by collisions with 4He atoms have been calculated using a quasiclassical trajectory method and a set of artificial neural networks representing the N2+/He potential energy surface. The training points for the neural networks have been calculated at a MCSCF (multi‐configuration self‐consistent field) / aug‐cc‐pVQZ level. A broad range of the N2+/He collision energy has been considered Ecoll ≤ 100 eV and the efficiency of vibrational transitions in the N2+ ion has also been analyzed. It has been found that vibrational transitions are negligible with respect to rotational transitions up to Ecoll ~ 10 eV and that above this energy, both rotational and vibrational transitions in N2+ are marginal in the N2+/He collisions.