Molecular beam studies of weak interactions for open-shell systems: The ground and lowest excited states of rare gas oxides

Integral cross sections as a function of velocity for scattering of ground state oxygen atoms by the rare gases have been measured at thermal energy. Analysis of atomic sublevels by a Stern–Gerlach magnet allows a control of the relative contribution from different fine structure scattering channels. The results are analyzed using an adiabatic decoupling scheme to derive the interaction as a spherical part and an anisotropic component, from which information is obtained on the six lowest states of the rare gas oxides and on nonadiabatic coupling terms.