Exact Quantum-Mechanical Calculation of a Collinear Collision of a Particle with a Harmonic Oscillator

Exact quantum-mechanical calculations of the transition probabilities for the collinear collision of an atom with a diatomic molecule are performed. The diatomic molecule is treated as a harmonic oscillator. A range of interaction potentials from very hard to very soft are considered. It is found that for ``realistic'' interaction potentials the approximate calculations of Jackson and Mott are consistently high, even when the transition probabilities are low and good approximate results are expected. In some cases double and even triple quantum jumps are more important than single quantum jumps. Comparisons are made with exact classical calculations. A semiempirical formula is given for computing quantum-mechanical transition probabilities from classical calculations.