A systematic study of Hornbeck Molnar ionization involving Rydberg alkali atoms

An improved theory within the frame work of Fermi's Free-Electron model has been proposed to evaluate the Hornbeck Molnar Ionization (HMI) cross secti ons, and has been applied to investigate the formation of homonuclear alkal i diamers at thermal energies. The calculated cross sections for all homonu clear pairs involving Rydberg alkali atoms and the ground state alkali atom s are compared with the available experimental results. In the limit of lar ge n (the principal quantum number of the parent Rydberg atom) present resu lts predict the correct asymptotic behavior but disagree considerably with the earlier findings of Kumar and Gounand [J. Phys. B 20 (1987) 2773]. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.