Low-energy inelastic collisions of OH radicals with He atoms and D₂ molecules

We present an experimental study on the rotational inelastic scattering of OH (X {sup 2}{Pi}{sub 3/2},J=3/2,f) radicals with He and D{sub 2} at collision energies between 100 and 500 cm{sup -1} in a crossed beam experiment. The OH radicals are state selected and velocity tuned using a Stark decelerator. Relative parity-resolved state-to-state inelastic scattering cross sections are accurately determined. These experiments complement recent low-energy collision studies between trapped OH radicals and beams of He and D{sub 2} that are sensitive to the total (elastic and inelastic) cross sections [Sawyer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 203203 (2008)], but for which the measured cross sections could not be reproduced by theoretical calculations [Pavlovic et al., J. Phys. Chem. A 113, 14670 (2009)]. For the OH-He system, our experiments validate the inelastic cross sections determined from rigorous quantum calculations.