Low energy,variable angle electron-impact excitation of 1,3,5-hexatriene

A mixture of cis and trans 1,3,5-hexatriene has been studied by electron impact at incident electron energies of 20 eV, 40 eV, 50 eV, and 70 eV, at scattering angles from 0° to 80°, and with effective energy resolutions in the range from 0.05 eV to 0.15 eV. Singlet → triplet transitions with maximum intensities at 2.61 eV and 4.11 eV are observed. The lowest energy spin-allowed excitation which can be detected is the electric dipole-allowed $\text{X}$¹ A_g → 1 ¹B_u transition (in the notation appropriate for the trans isomer). No evidence has been found for a spin-allowed but symmetry-forbidden $\text{X}$¹ A_g → 2 ¹A_g excitation in the vicinity of 4.4 eV transition energy. Many other spin-allowed excitations are observed in the 6–11 eV energy-loss region, and the correlation between these features and those observed in high resolution ultraviolet absorption spectra and other electron-impact spectra is discussed.