Atomic Molecular And Photon Collision Physics

This is the second volume of textbooks on atomic, molecular and optical physics, aiming at a comprehensive presentation of this highly productive branch of modern physics as an indispensable basis for many areas in physics and chemistry as well as in state of the art bio- and material-sciences. It primarily addresses advanced students (including PhD students), but in a number of selected subject areas the reader is lead up to the frontiers of present research. Thus even the active scientist is addressed. This volume 2 introduces lasers and quantum optics, while the main focus is on the structure of molecules and their spectroscopy, as well as on collision physics as the continuum counterpart to bound molecular states. The emphasis is always on the experiment and its interpretation, while the necessary theory is introduced from this perspective in a compact and occasionally somewhat heuristic manner, easy to follow even for beginners.

An understanding of the collisions between micro particles is of great importance for the number of fields belonging to physics, chemistry, astrophysics, biophysics etc. The present book, a theory for electron-atom and molecule collisions is developed using non-relativistic quantum mechanics in a systematic and lucid manner. The scattering theory is an essential part of the quantum mechanics course of all universities. During the last 30 years, the author has lectured on the topics presented in this book (collisions physics, photon-atom collisions, electron-atom and electron-molecule collisions, "electron-photon delayed coincidence technique", etc.) at many institutions including Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, The University of Western Ontario, Canada, and The Meerut University, India. The present book is the outcome of those lectures and is written to serve as a textbook for post-graduate and pre-PhD students and as a reference book for researchers.

Commencing with a self-contained overview of atomic collision theory, this monograph presents recent developments of R-matrix theory and its applications to a wide-range of atomic molecular and optical processes. These developments include the electron and photon collisions with atoms, ions and molecules which are required in the analysis of laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, multiphoton processes required in the analysis of superintense laser interactions with atoms and molecules and positron collisions with atoms and molecules required in antimatter studies of scientific and technologial importance. Basic mathematical results and general and widely used R-matrix computer programs are summarized in the appendices.

This introduction to Atomic and Molecular Physics explains how our present model of atoms and molecules has been developed during the last two centuries by many experimental discoveries and from the theoretical side by the introduction of quantum physics to the adequate description of micro-particles. It illustrates the wave model of particles by many examples and shows the limits of classical description. The interaction of electromagnetic radiation with atoms and molecules and its potential for spectroscopy is outlined in more detail and in particular lasers as modern spectroscopic tools are discussed more thoroughly. Many examples and problems with solutions should induce the reader to an intense active cooperation.

An understanding of the collisions between micro particles is of great importance for the number of fields belonging to physics, chemistry, astrophysics, biophysics etc. The present book, a theory for electron-atom and molecule collisions is developed using non-relativistic quantum mechanics in a systematic and lucid manner. The scattering theory is an essential part of the quantum mechanics course of all universities. During the last 30 years, the author has lectured on the topics presented in this book (collisions physics, photon-atom collisions, electron-atom and electron-molecule collisions, "electron-photon delayed coincidence technique", etc.) at many institutions including Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, The University of Western Ontario, Canada, and The Meerut University, India. The present book is the outcome of those lectures and is written to serve as a textbook for post-graduate and pre-PhD students and as a reference book for researchers.

ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS: Introduction to Advanced Topics introduces advanced topics of Atomic and Molecular Collision Physics covering Atomic structure calculations, Photoionization of atomic systems, Electron-atom collisions, Ion-atom collisions, Collisions involving exotic particles, Ultracold atoms and Bose-Einstein condensation as well as Atomic data and Plasma diagnostics. This volume is very useful to start research in theoretical and experimental Atomic and Molecular Physics. The book is also helpful to those working in interrelated research areas like Laser physics, Astrophysics and Plasma and Fusion research where such a background of theoretical Atomic Collision Physics is an integral part.

The NATO-Advanced Study Institute on "Collision Theory for Atoms and Molecules" was made possible by the main sponsorship and the generous financial support of the NATO Scientific Affairs Division in Brussels. Belgium. Special thanks are therefore due to the late Dr. Mario Di Lullo and to Dr. Craig Sinclair. of this Division. who repeatedly advised us and kept us aware of administrative requirements. The Institute was also assisted by the financial aid from the Scientific Committees for Chemistry and Physics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR). The search and selection of a suitable location. one which participants would easily reach from any of Italy's main airports, was ably aided by the Personnel of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and made possible by its Directorship. Our thanks therefore go to its present director. Prof. L. Radicati. and to its past director. Prof. E. Vesentini who first agreed to our use of their main building in Pisa and of their palatial facilities at the "Palazzone" in Cortona.

Until recently, the field of atomic and molecular collisions was left to a handful of practitioners who essentially explored it as a branch of atomic physics and gathered their experimental re sults mainly from spectroscopy measurements in bulk. But in the past ten years or so, all of this has dramatically changed, and we are now witnessing the rapid growth of a large body of research that encompasses the simplest atoms as well as the largest mole cules, that looks at a wide variety of phenomena well outside purely spectroscopic observation, and that finds applications in an unexpectedly broad range of physico-chemical and physical pro cesses. The latter are in turn surprisingly close to very important sectors of applied research, such as the modeling of molecular lasers, the study of isotope separation techniques, and the energy losses in confined plasmas, to mention just a few of them. As a consequence of this healthy state of affairs, greatly diversified research pathways have developed; however, their specialized problems are increasingly at risk of being viewed in isolation, although they are part of a major and extended branch of physics or chemistry. This is particularly true when it comes to the theory of this work -- where well-established methods and models of one subfield are practically unknown to researchers in other subfields -- and, consequently, the danger of wasteful duplication arising is quite real.