Dissociative recombination of HCl+, H2Cl+, DCl+, and D2Cl+ in a flowing afterglow.

Abstract

Dissociative recombination of electrons with HCl+, H2Cl+, DCl+, and D2Cl+ has been measured under thermal conditions at 300, 400, and 500 K using a flowing afterglow-Langmuir probe apparatus. Measurements for HCl+ and DCl+ employed the variable electron and neutral density attachment mass spectrometry (VENDAMS) method, while those for H2Cl+ and D2Cl+ employed both VENDAMS and the more traditional technique of monitoring electron density as a function of reaction time. At 300 K, HCl+ and H2Cl+ recombine with kDR = 7.7±2.14.5 × 10-8 cm3 s-1 and 2.6 ± 0.8 × 10-7 cm3 s-1, respectively, whereas D2Cl+ is roughly half as fast as H2Cl+ with kDR = 1.1 ± 0.3 × 10-7 cm3 s-1 (2σ confidence intervals). DCl+ recombines with a rate coefficient below the approximate detection limit of the method (≲5 × 10-8 cm3 s-1) at all temperatures. Relatively slow dissociative recombination rates have been speculated to be responsible for the large HCl+ and H2Cl+ abundances in interstellar clouds compared to current astrochemical models, but our results imply that the discrepancy must originate elsewhere.