Resolving the energy and temperature dependence of C₆ H₆ ∗ collisional relaxation via time-dependent bath temperature measurements

The relaxation of highly vibrationally excited benzene, generated by 193 nm laser excitation, was studied using the transient rotational-translational temperature rise of the N2 bath, which was measured by proxy using two-line laser induced fluorescence of seeded NO. The resulting experimentally measured time-dependent N2 temperature rises were modeled with MultiWell based simulations of Collisional Energy Transfer (CET) from benzene vibration to N2 rotation-translation. We find that the average energy transferred in benzene deactivating collisions depends linearly on the internal energy of the excited benzene molecules and depends approximately linearly on the N2 bath temperature between 300 K and 600 K. The results are consistent with experimental studies and classical trajectory calculations of CET in similar systems.