Electron-impact resonant vibrational excitation and dissociation processes involving vibrationally excited N 2 molecules

Resonant vibrational excitation cross sections and the corresponding rate coefficients for electron–N2 collisions occurring through the resonant state are reviewed. New calculations are performed using accurate potential energy curves for the N2 electronic ground state, taken from the literature, and for the resonant state, obtained from R-matrix calculations. The calculations are extended to resonant excitation processes involving the N2 ground state vibrational continuum, leading to dissociation. Electron-impact dissociation is found to be significant from higher vibrational levels. Accurate analytical fits for the complete set of the rate coefficients are provided. The behavior of the dissociative cross sections is investigated for rotationally excited N2 molecules, with J = 50, 100 and 150, and for different vibrational levels.