Determination of Interatomic Potentials of He2, Ne2, Ar2, and H2 by Wave Function Imaging

Author(s): Zeller, S; Kunitski, M; Voigtsberger, J; Waitz, M; Trinter, F; Eckart, S; Kalinin, A; Czasch, A; Schmidt, L Ph H; Weber, T; Schoffler, M; Jahnke, T; Dorner, R | Abstract: We report on a direct method to measure the interatomic potential energy curve of diatomic systems. A cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy reaction microscope was used to measure the squares of the vibrational wave functions of H_{2}, He_{2}, Ne_{2}, and Ar_{2}. The Schrodinger equation relates the curvature of the wave function to the potential V(R) and therefore offers a simple but elegant way to extract the shape of the potential.