PREDISSOCIATION QUANTUM YIELDS OF SINGLET NITROGEN

The branching between predissociation and photoemission is measured us ing a fast beam technique for several excited singlet states of the ni trogen molecule that lie at energies between 110 000 and 113 000 cm-1 above the ground electronic state. The specific states probed in this study are b' 1SIGMA(u)+(v = 9-13), c' 1SIGMA(u)+(v = 3,4), and c 1PI(u )+(v = 3,4), and substantial predissociation is observed in each. The present measurements are compared with previous measurements of the br anching ratio and with the predissociation rates implied by previous l ifetimes and absorption linewidth measurements.