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Poster Session I

4:30 pm – 6:30 pm, Tuesday October 14 Session DT4 COEX, Lobby E
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Electronically resolved excitation in proton collisions with H2

Poster 5
Presenter: Liam H Scarlett (Curtin University of Technology)
Authors: Corey Plowman (Curtin University), Mark Zammit (Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)), Igor Bray (Curtin University of Technology), Dmitry Fursa (Curtin Univ of Technology)

When cosmic ray protons propagate through gas clouds in space they collide with atoms and molecules. In order to calculate the photon flux produced as a result of these collisions knowledge of the rovibrationally resolved cross sections for excitation is required. The most prevalent species in these environments is the hydrogen molecule, however, there are currently no measurements or calculations of state-resolved excitation cross sections in p++H2 collisions at keV energies. As a substitute, equivelocity scaling of the available data for electron collisions with H2 is currently used to estimate the proton cross sections.

Using the semi-classical approach to ion collisions we have extended the molecular convergent close-coupling (MCCC) code to proton collisions with H2. We have calculated fully converged fixed-nuclei excitation cross sections for transitions from the ground electronic state to H2 states up to n=3 in the atomic limit. Comparison of the present results with the scaled electron cross sections reveals significant differences, suggesting that substitution of scaled electron data with ab initio cross sections for proton projectiles could improve the accuracy of modelling relying on this data.

Funding acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (project DP240101184). L.H.S is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (project number DE240100176) funded by the Australian Government. M.C.Z would like to specifically acknowledge Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) ASC PEM Atomic Physics Project. LANL is operated by Triad National Security, LLC, for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. 89233218NCA000001. This work was supported by re- sources provided by the Pawsey Supercomputing Centre with funding from the Australian Government and the Government of Western Australia.

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