Determination of the He-He, Ne-Ne, Ar-Ar, and H$_{2}$ interaction potential by wave function imaging

Author(s): Zeller, S; Kunitski, M; Voigtsberger, J; Waitz, M; Trinter, F; Eckart, S; Kalinin, A; Czasch, A; Schmidt, LPH; Weber, T; Schoffler, M; Jahnke, T; Dorner, R | Abstract: © 2018 American Physical Society. We report on a direct method to measure the interatomic potential energy curve of diatomic systems. A cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy reaction microscope was used to measure the squares of the vibrational wave functions of H2, He2, Ne2, and Ar2. The Schrodinger equation relates the curvature of the wave function to the potential V(R) and therefore offers a simple but elegant way to extract the shape of the potential.