Calculation of radiative transition probabilities and radiative recombination rate coefficients for H2, OH, H2+ and OH+ molecules

A method is presented to calculate the radiative transition probabilities and the radiative recombination rate coefficients between electronic molecular states. Total transition probabilities are determined from vibrational transition probabilities without considering the detailed rotational structure of the molecular electronic states. Radiative recombination rate coefficients are obtained from the computation of vibrational photo-ionisation cross sections. Concerning spontaneous emission, Lyman (B → X) and Werner (C → X) band systems of H2 and Meinel (A → X), (B → A) and (B → X) band systems of OH are investigated. For radiative recombination, transitions between H2+ (X) and H2(X), and between OH+(X, a, A, b, and c) and OH(X) are considered. Transition probabilities and recombination rate coefficients are calculated as a function of temperature in the range 1500–15 000 K.