Energy transfer in the collision of an atom with a cold lattice

摘要

We report numerically exact classical calculations on energy transfer and capture of an atom incident on an initially cold lattice in a collinear configuration. The lattice is harmonic and the adatomndash;surface interaction is a Morse potential. The system is completely specified in terms of only three physical parameters: the adatomhyphen;tohyphen;latticehyphen;atom mass ratio, the ratio of the Morse interaction force constant to the lattice force constant, and the ratio of the incident energy to the Morse well depth (latticendash;adatom binding energy). These exact calculations form a basis for comparing and testing several approximate dynamical models of gasndash;surface interactions.