An investigation of the photodissociation of molecular oxygen in the 75 to 85 nm region Original Research Article

The cross section for photodissociation of molecular oxygen in the 75 to 85 nm region has been obtained from data for the total absorption and photoionization cross sections. This spectrum, together with published data, has been used to adjust a theoretical model for photodissociation in which three Rydberg states were each coupled to two newly proposed dissociating states. It was found that the observed photodissociation cross sections can be approximated by a model in which there is no direct transition from the ground state to one of the dissociating states. It is proposed that this dissociating state has the symmetry 3Σu+, while the other has either 3Σu− or 3Πu symmetry.