0000000000560137
AUTHOR
D. K. Bronnikov
Measurement of rotational relaxation in the ground state of methane perturbed by argon at low temperature
International audience; Relaxation processes at low temperature in methane perturbed by argon have been investigated on the basis of new measurements. Diode laser absorption spectra of methane in the region of the dyad nu2/nu4 in supersonic expansions have been recorded. The time of relaxation of the ground state mean rotational energy was derived from the observed dependences of the rotational temperature on the concentration in the jet. A semi-classical model was used to calculate the state-to-state relaxation rate constants at room temperature. The evaluation of the time of relaxation of the mean rotational energy using semi-empirical temperature dependence laws is presented and discusse…
SPECTROSCOPY AND NON-EQUILIBRIUM DISTRIBUTION OF VIBRATIONALLY EXCITED METHANE IN A SUPERSONIC JET
Abstract High-resolution spectra of supersonic jets of vibrationally excited methane have been recorded by diode laser in the 8 μm region. A formalism for the description of energy distribution is proposed. It allows to estimate populations of vibrational polyads. Under these non-equilibrium conditions, translational temperature is also measured from line profiles. For relaxation, it is shown that vibrational relaxation between polyads is negligible whereas strong redistribution of population arises inside each polyad. Spectroscopically, observed lines involving the first four excited polyads allows cross-checked tests for energy level analysis.