Ml. Strekalov, ROTATIONAL RELAXATION AND COLLISIONAL ENERGY-TRANSFER CALCULATIONS BASED ON A NEW FITTING LAW, Molecular physics, 86(1), 1995, pp. 39-52
The relaxation of some initially excited molecules (rigid rotators) in
teracting with a heat bath of other molecules is investigated. We prop
ose a new fitting law for quantitative estimates of the rotationally i
nelastic rate constants, which is analytically derived from the energy
corrected sudden (ECS) approximation. The quasiclassical ECS-E model
is shown to give analytical expressions for energy transfer moments, Q
-branch line widths and rotational relaxation time. As an example, all
higher-order approximations for the rotational relaxation time are ob
tained in an explicit form. The validity of this model is tested for t
he case of energy relaxation in nitrogen.