Radiative Collisions between Molecular and Electron Beams

III. Angular Momentum Distribution of OH^* Radicals Liberated from Alcohol Molecules

Abstract

The light induced when a homogeneous electron beam (500–700 eV) intersects normally a localized jet of methyl, ethyl, or n-propyl alcohol vapor in a vacuum of 10⁻⁴ mmHg has been found to be almost entirely due to the emissions from the fragments H^*, CH^* and, OH^*. The angular momentum distributions of the OH^* radicals split from alcohol molecules of the respective species have been measured by the molecular spectrophotometric method. They all differ notably from that previously found for OH^* from H₂O, that is, the first maximum appears near the rotational quantum number 7 and the second maximum is entirely absent except for OH^* from CH₃OH. Qualitative discussions are also given to the multiple fragmentation by electron impact of these alcohol molecules.