Electron scattering from vibrationally excited CO2

The total cross section for electron scattering from vibrationally excited (principally 010) CO2 molecules has been measured in the energy range 0.12-2.0 eV with a time of flight electron spectrometer. The vibrationally excited molecules were produced by thermal excitation of the gas contained in a scattering cell at a temperature of 300 C. The cross section for scattering from these excited molecules was deduced by comparison with similar measurements performed at room temperature. At energies below 2 eV the excited-state cross section is considerably larger than that for scattering from ground-state CO2. The ground-state measurements are in excellent agreement with other recent experimental and theoretical work.