Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Inelastic Rate Coefficients For Collisions Of C₆Hˉ With H₂ And He, Kyle M. Walker, François Lique, Fabien Dumouchel, Richard Dawes

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

The recent detection of anions in the interstellar medium has shown that they exist in a variety of astrophysical environments -- circumstellar envelopes, cold dense molecular clouds and star-forming regions. Both radiative and collisional processes contribute to molecular excitation and de-excitation in these regions so that the ‘local thermodynamic equilibrium’ approximation, where collisions cause the gas to behave thermally, is not generally valid. Therefore, along with radiative coefficients, collisional excitation rate coefficients are needed to accurately model the anionic emission from these environments. We focus on the calculation of state-to-state rate coefficients of the C₆H^- molecule in …