Quenching of Infrared Chemiluminescence 1: The Rates of De-Excitation of CO (4 ≤ v ≤ 13) by He, CO, NO, N_2, O_2, OCS, N_2O, and CO_2

Infrared chemiluminescence has been observed from vibrationally excited CO, formed in the reaction, O + CS → CO + S. The quenching of the CO overtone spectrum has been studied as a function of the concentration of each of a number of added gases. A steady-state treatment is developed which allows rates to be determined for the de-excitation of individual vibrational levels of CO (4 ≤ v ≤ 13) by He, CO (v = 0), NO, N2, O2, OCS, N2O, and CO2. The experimental results are compared with theoretically predicted rates. Finally, the importance of the results for interpreting the behavior of CO vibrational lasers is considered.