Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 1998. / Title from PDF t.p.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-111). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Although the quasi-adiabatic calculations have led to an improved description of the measured observables, the theoretical justifications of the assumptions made in the model have not yet been studied. The first part of the work described in this thesis is therefore concerned with the clarification of these theoretical uncertainties by performing a rigorous investigation of the accuracy and the validity of the model. In addition, we reformulate the quasi-adiabatic theory to give a more general formalism, approaching the three-body problem in a different way. This alternative formulation provides a clear understanding of the assumptions made in the original quasi-adiabatic theory. Using the spirit of the new quasi-adiabatic formalism, we also develop alternative approximation schemes for the treatment of quantum mechanical three-body systems. The accuracy and the range of validity of the developments, together with the quasi-adiabatic theory, are investigated carefully and precisely by comparing their predictions with those essentially exact CDCC technique for the 66Zn (d,p)67Zn reaction at 88.2 MeV. It is found that the alternative models and quasi-adiabatic theory are reliable techniques for the treatment of deuteron breakup process at intermediate energies of interest. The remainder of this thesis is devoted to the investigation of the mechanism of (p,d*) reactions. As the treatment of the final state interactions in such reactions has not previously been studied consistently, we develop an adiabatic method and apply it to new data for the 13C(p,d)12C reaction with 35 MeV incident proton energy. Due to the weak coupling between spin channels of the continuum n-p system at the energies of interest, the singlet and triplet state pickup cross-sections for the final n-p system are analyzed separately. We find that the contribution from the singlet state is dominant for small relative energies while the triplet state dominates for large energies. This application clarifies the relationship between the three-body dynamics in the final state of (p,d) and (p,d*) reactions.

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This thesis presents a joint experimental and theoretical study of vector correlations in the electronically, vibrationally, and rotationally inelastic collisions of simple molecules with rare-gas atoms. In the first instance, empirical and calculated data are presented for rotationally inelastic scattering in the NO(X)+Ar and ND₃(X̃)+Ar systems at collision energies in the range 405-2210 cm^-1. These experiments - the first to be conducted on a newly commissioned crossed-molecular beam machine - measured the k-k' correlation, i.e. that between the vectors describing the relative velocities before and after collision, respectively. The empirical data were subjected to rigorous comparison with both quantum-mechanical and quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations. For both the NO(X)+Ar and ND₃(X̃)+Ar systems, there is generally good agreement between experiment and theory at all four collision energies investigated. Two chapters of this thesis focus on the development of trajectory surface-hopping (TSH) QCT models of the OH(A, v = 0)+Kr and OH(A, v = 0)+Xe systems. Experimental data relating to scalar quantities (rotational energy transfer (RET) and electronic quenching) and to the j-j' correlation (which quantifies the depolarisation of the angular momentum of the OH(A) radical) are compared to variable-collision-energy TSH QCT calculations in which the length of the OH bond is fixed. The algorithms involve all three PESs of the OH(A/X)+Kr system, and the full range of electrostatic and roto-electronic mechanisms that couple them, for the first time. The most complete model succeeded in accounting for 93% of experimentally observed quenching. For the OH(A/X)+Xe system, coupling matrix elements were estimated from those of OH(A/X)+Kr, and the most complete model recovered 63% of experimentally observed quenching. This thesis also presents a novel theoretical study of rotationally inelastic dynamics in the OH(A, v = 1)+Kr system. Provisional results from adiabatic calculations in which the OH bond length is allowed to vary over the course of a trajectory are presented alongside experimental data that were reported previously. To date, these calculations continue to underestimate the extent of empirical RET data. Reasons for the observed discrepancy, and suggestions to resolve it, are outlined in detail.