Charge transfer in gas–surface scattering: the three electronic state system Original Research Article

A general theoretical treatment for near-resonant charge exchange in gas–surface scattering is presented for a coupled three electronic state system. Specifically, the quadratic form method in linear algebra is used to solve a coupled set of differential equations within the framework of Michaʹs common eikonal formalism to determine evolution of nuclear transition amplitudes. The electron transfer probability was thus given analytically. It is also found that if the diabatic potentials Vd for the system satisfy the condition that D>0, where D is the discriminant of characteristic polynomial of eigenvalue equation of the matrix Vd, the charge transfer will be forbidden due to the hermicity of Vd. Comparison with a previous calculation of the ionization probability for a sodium atom scattering from a W(110) surface shows quite good agreement. The results demonstrate that the method appears to have a wide range of validity for the description of a variety of nonadiabatic phenomena in gas–surface scattering.