Calculation and measurement of the second light-scattering virial coefficients of nonlinear molecules: a study of ethene

Abstract

The second light-scattering virial coefficient Bp of ethene has been extracted from measurements of the depolarization ratio p at gas pressures up to 3"2 MPa. The value calculated using our recent molecular tensor theory of Bp for axially symmetric molecules, underestimates the experimental value by 40%. A complete molecular tensor theory of Bp for nonlinear molecules is presented, and leads to a calculated value for ethene which is within 2 % of the experimental value.