A laboratory study of charge transfer and hydrogen atom pickup reactions in N +H 2O(D 2O) collisions at suprathermal energies

Abstract

Charge transfer and hydrogen atom pickup cross sections are reported for N +H 2O(D 2O) collisions at center-of-mass energies between 1 and 25 eV. Time-of-flight measurements were performed to determine the charge transfer product ion kinetic energies. The exothermic charge transfer proceeds rapidly at large impact parameters with little momentum transfer, and is independent of the water isotope. Above 2 eV, this reaction is governed by a direct mechanism without a long-lived complex. The endothermic hydrogen atom pickup cross section increases with the collision energy, and is approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than the charge transfer cross section.