SECONDARY HEATING EFFECTS IN LASER-INDUCED FLUORESCENCE EXPERIMENTS

The effects of secondary heating that alter observed rate constants are examined through a three vibrational level model. Though secondary heating can significantly change eigenrates influenced by V-T,R steps, the distortion of eigenrates dominated by V-V steps is vanishingly small. Experiments that monitor fluorescence at 4.3-4.8-mu-m for CO2 or N2O pumped from one excited vibrational level to another by a CO2 laser exhibit no shift arising from secondary heating.