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Title: Inelastic low-energy collisions of electrons with HeH+: Rovibrational excitation and dissociative recombination

Journal Article · · Journal of Chemical Physics
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4994921· OSTI ID:1474040
 [1];  [2]
  1. Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR), Prague (Czech Republic). J. Heyrovsky Inst. of Physical Chemistry
  2. Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy

Inelastic low-energy (0–1 eV) collisions of electrons with HeH+ cations are treated theoretically, with a focus on the rovibrational excitation and dissociative recombination (DR) channels. In an application of ab initio multichannel quantum defect theory, the description of both processes is based on the Born-Oppenheimer quantum defects. The quantum defects were determined using the R-matrix approach in two different frames of reference: the center-of-charge and the center-of-mass frames. The results obtained in the two reference systems, after implementing the Fano-Jungen style rovibrational frame-transformation technique, show differences in the rate of convergence for these two different frames of reference. We find good agreement with the available theoretically predicted rotationally inelastic thermal rate coefficients. Our computed DR rate also agrees well with the available experimental results. Moreover, several computational experiments shed light on the role of rotational and vibrational excitations in the indirect DR mechanism that governs the low energy HeH+ dissociation process. While the rotational excitation is several orders of magnitude more probable process at the studied collision energies, the closed-channel resonances described by the high-n, rotationally excited neutral molecules of HeH contribute very little to the dissociation probability. However, the situation is very different for resonances defined by the high-n, vibrationally excited HeH molecules, which are found to dissociate with approximately 90% probability.

Research Organization:
Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); European Union (EU); Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MSMT) (Czech Republic)
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0010545; LD14088; CM1301
OSTI ID:
1474040
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1373985
Journal Information:
Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol. 147, Issue 5; ISSN 0021-9606
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 11 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (8)

Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeH+ journal April 2019
Roadmap on photonic, electronic and atomic collision physics: II. Electron and antimatter interactions journal August 2019
Electron-impact excitation of diatomic hydride cations II: OH+ and SH+ journal February 2018
Dissociative Recombination of Cold HeH + Ions journal January 2020
Quantum-state–selective electron recombination studies suggest enhanced abundance of primordial HeH + journal July 2019
Cross Sections and Rate Coefficients for Rovibrational Excitation of HeH+ Isotopologues by Electron Impact journal July 2019
On the validity of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation in the indirect dissociative recombination process text January 2018
Dissociative recombination of cold HeH$^+$ ions text January 2019