Dissociative recombination: an electronic correlation problem

Abstract

A recent application of propagator theory to very low-energy electron–molecule scattering provides information on the basic mechanisms in dissociative recombination. Current experiments in storage rings reveal that carbonium ions (CH3 +) recombine and fragment into three parts equally often as into just two. An analysis of the possible resonances between free electron and bound electron states for the ions requires a detailed examination of the correlation effects plus the coupling to nuclear degrees of freedom, and thus is an ideal problem for the propagator approach.