Internal-state distribution of Na2+ produced by associative ionization collisions between Na(3p) atoms

The distribution of internal states in Na2+ arising from the associative ionization (AI) collisions, Na(3p 2P/sub 3/2/)+Na(3p 2P/sub 3/2/)→Na2++e-, probes the general shape of the potential curves on which the collision takes place. We compare the internal-state distribution extracted from experimental data to those calculated from two sets of recently published potential curves. The results of the comparison indicate that the incoming channels for the AI process follow attractive potentials in the nuclear motion