Investigation of Charge Transfer in Low Energy D2+ + H Collisions using Merged Beams

Abstract

Synopsis The hydrogen - hydrogen (deuterium) molecular ion is the most fundamental ion-molecule two-electron system. Charge transfer proceeds through dynamically coupled electronic, vibrational and rotational degrees of freedom. Using the ion-atom merged-beams apparatus at Oak Ridge National Laboratory absolute charge transfer cross sections for D₂⁺ + H are measured from keV/u collision energies where the collision is considered "ro-vibrationally frozen" to meV/u energies where collision times are long enough to sample vibrational and rotational modes. The measurements benchmark high energy theory and vibrationally specific adiabatic theory.