Dissociation of hydrogen molecules in collisions with light alkali ions. I. Na +-D 2

Abstract

The dissociation of a ground state D 2 molecule in single collisions with a Na + ion has been studied using a time of flight technique over a large range of scattering angles and collision energies (10 eV < E cm < 40 eV). A trial and error method, which takes account of all sources of experimental smearing has been used to obtain center of mass inelastic differential cross sections (contour maps). These results indicate that the dissociation proceeds by a two step mechanism. The first step is a two body activation collision, which is observed directly in the experiment.