Final Report Summary - MOLBIL (Molecular Billiards in Slow Motion)
The study of energy transfer in collisions between molecules in the gas-phase is a well-established approach to probe the potential energy surfaces (PESs) that govern molecular interactions, and has a long and rich history. The level of detail that can be obtained in these studies depends on the quality of preparation of the collision partners before the collision and on how accurately the products are analyzed afterwards. Using state-of-the-art molecular decelerators, in combination with advanced imaging techniques to detect molecules, we have performed a series a crossed beam experiments to study scattering phenomena that often had been elusive to experimental observation. These include diffraction oscillations in differential cross sections, scattering resonances at low collision energies, and product-pair correlations for bi-molecular scattering. The precise experimental data on these scattering processes challenge the most sophisticated theoretical descriptions of molecular interactions to date.