L. Tribe et al., ARGON SCATTERING OFF THE SURFACE OF LIQUID INDIUM - EXIT ANGLE AND ENERGY-DEPENDENCE, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B, 102(1), 1998, pp. 206-211
Energy-and angle-resolved intensities are reported for the scattering
of argon atoms off the surface of liquid indium just above the melting
temperature, for two different argon incident energies. The higher in
cident energy results show significant energy transfer from argon to l
iquid atoms, and the angular distribution of scattered argon atoms is
relatively sharply peaked near the specular angle. The lower incident
energy results show a small amount of energy transfer from liquid atom
s to argon atoms, the energy distribution of the scattered argon atoms
is nearly thermal, and the angular distribution is much less sharply
peaked, although still not completely thermal. Molecular dynamics simu
lations of these experiments are performed, and most of the results ar
e in reasonable agreement with experiment. Analysis of the simulation
trajectories helps to provide a microscopic understanding of the exper
imental results.