POLLARD: Yes, certainly. 



LINSCHITZ: Are you really satisfied that the high energy tail of the distri- 

 bution has been cut down? 



POLLARD: Yes, about that we are satisfied. That is all right. I am not 

 able to state the precautions about electrostatic effects here, but I am satisfied 

 they are all right. However, you have to take my word for that. 



KASHA: Could it be possible that you are just successively populating sev- 

 eral vibrational states in the molecule under steady-state electron irradiation? 



POLLARD: Yes. 



KASHA: In other words, this should be possible to duplicate with infrared 

 irradiation, if you have sufficiently high intensity. 



POLLARD: That is what we feel should be done. 



BURTON: As a matter of fact, we have a situation in a field rather remote 

 from the one under discussion, corresponding exactly to your model. I refer 

 to chemical reactions in an electrical discharge through methane. In that case 

 we apparently have important successive excitation effects. The primary exci- 

 tation process produces a species which is in turn excited by electron impact. 

 Without such secondary excitation, methane could be re-formed or ethane 

 would be produced. If the secondary excitation process occurs, acetylene is 

 produced. This total process is similar to what you are talking about. 



KASHA: It has been possible to study infrared emission in molecules, and, 

 if this were the mechanism, you would definitely observe it while the electrons 

 were bombarding the molecules. I think Plyler (25) has published some infrared 

 emission spectra of molecules, around one volt. 



POLLARD: That would be a hard job for us to do. 



ONSAGER: If it were a matter of successive effects, then the inactivation 

 should increase with some power of the amount of time of bombardment. 



POLLARD: There should be a wavelength effect. 



BURTON: I do not agree with Dr. Onsager. Not the time of bombardment, 

 but the intensity of the bombardment is important. That is precisely what we 

 found. We found the so-called "rate constant" to increase as a function of the 

 intensity. 



ONSAGER: I might volunteer another suggestion here, that with one- volt 

 electrons it still isn't certain that the total energy available is merely one volt, 

 because when the electrons end, whatever material we are working with, they 

 are accelerated by the contact potential. At least I think they will be attracted. 

 The contact potential is not very well known and even difficult to define, but we 

 have to allow for it. It depends on the structure of the surface layer. 



BURTON: How much do you think the total energy might be? 



ONSAGER: A couple of volts. 



BURTON: That is an interesting figure. It is just of the right order of 



