Vibrational Distribution Functions in Anharmonic Oscillators

A model has been developed to calculate the steady-state vibrational distribution of an anharmonic oscillator under conditions of thermal nonequilibrium. The model includes vibration–vibration and vibration–translation collisional processes as well as radiative decay. Numerical calculations are shown to be in reasonably good agreement with experimental data obtained in electrically excited N2–CO mixing systems. It is shown that radiative decay may be the dominant loss mechanism in low-pressure N2–CO experiments.