Abstract
The effects of initial vibrational energy on VV energy transfer in the collinear collision of two diatomic molecules, either homonuclear or heteronuclear, has been studied over a range of collision energies in classical mechanics. When initial vibrational energy is very large, only a small fraction of vibrational energy in the excited molecule is transferred to the colliding partner. In this case, the VV step is found to be strongly coupled with VT during the collision. At low collision energies, energy transfer in the homonuclear case of $O_2$+ $O_2$ with small initial vibrational energy is found to be very inefficient. In the heteronuclear case of CH + HC with the initial energy equivalent to one vibrational quantum, VV energy exchange is found to be very efficient at such energies. Between 0.3 and 0.5 ev, nearly all of vibrational energy of the excited molecule with one to about three vibrational quanta in CH + HC is efficiently transferred to the colliding partner through pure VV process in a sequence of down steps during the collision. The occurrence of multiple impacts during the collision of two heteronuclear molecules and the collisional bond dissociation of homonuclear molecules are also discussed.
