Experimental investigation of CO vibrational deactivation in a supersonic cooling gas flow

Abstract. The vibrational relaxation time of CO molecules at collisions with H atoms was measured in shock tube experiments by means of the CARS-spectroscopy method. The measurements of the CO vibrational temperature at gas temperatures of 1800–3000 K were performed in a supersonic cooling gas flow. The gas was heated behind the incident and reflected shock wave and then flowed out of a wedge-shaped nozzle. H atoms were generated in the reflected shock wave because of dissociation of H and HO admixtures. The extremely high efficiency of H atoms in CO vibrational deactivation was confirmed. Received 1 February 2000 / Accepted 20 February 2000