Quantum Mechanical Scattering of Asymmetric Molecules. I. The Interaction Potential

Legendre polynomial expansions are derived for the interaction potential of molecules with a distance δ between the center of interaction and the center of mass. The scattering cross sections converge to a final value for a small number of terms of the expansion. The effect of the asymmetry parameter δ is to cause a quenching and a shift of the orbiting maxima in weakly coupled systems. The differential inelastic cross sections increase rapidly from zero with growing δ.