Ab initio calculations of energy transfer and non-additivity in the He-Ne laser system

Ab initio calculations were performed for several suggested mechanisms of energy transfer between helium metastable particles and neon. Optimized geometries and excited-state energies were calculated for neon excited-state complexes and the convergence properties of the non-additive contributions to the interaction energies were examined. The most probable excitation-transfer mechanism was found to be based on an energy difference of 0.0674 eV between the triplet excited state of and the singlet excited state of . No theoretical evidence was found for the production of neon singlet excited-state complexes other than 20.0858 to 20.4875 eV by the considered two-, three- and four-body models of energy transfer processes. The energy curves of the reactions involving the excited-state complexes and are provided and compared with the previously reported experimental results on the reaction . The relation between the probability of energy transfer and laser activity is discussed. The non-additive contribution to the total interaction energy of the nominated intermediate complex was found to be negligible, pointing to the possibility of constructing model potentials and simulation of larger systems. Received: 15 December 1998 / Received in final form: 20 March 1999