ℒ² amplitude density method for multichannel inelastic and rearrangement collisions

A new method for quantum mechanical calculations of cross sections for molecular energy transfer and chemical reactions is presented, and it is applied to inelastic and reactive collisions of I, H, and D with H₂. The method involves the expansion in a square-integrable basis set of the amplitude density due to the difference between the true interaction potential and a distortion potential and the solution of a large set of coupled equations for the basis function coefficients. The transition probabilities, which correspond to integrals over the amplitude density, are related straightforwardly to these coefficients.