Rotational relaxation of polar molecules

The method of obtaining rotational energy relaxation times from experimental thermal conductivities using the Wang Chang-Uhlenbeck theory of transport coefficient for polyatomic gases is considered. For polar gases the method turns out to be useful only if serious calculations of the inelastic collisions involved are performed. Using a semiclassical, partly statistical collision treatment the results for the rotational energy relaxation numbers for halogen hydrides taking dipole-dipole, dipole-quadrupole and quadrupole-quadrupole interactions into account are presented. It is characteristic for the results that hardly any temperature dependence or isotope effects are observed, a behaviour different from earlier investigations.