Energetics, kinetics and dynamics of decaying metastable ions studied with a high-resolution three-sector field mass spectrometer

Abstract

Mass spectrometric analysis of metastable decay reactions is devoted to the measurements of the kinetic energy release distribution (KERD) for the decay of singly charged rare gas dimer ions and , the doubly charged acetylene parent ion and the singly and doubly charged SF6 fragment ions, like for example , and . The KERDs are obtained either from high-resolution mass analysed ion kinetic energy spectra or the measurement of ion beam profiles using a specially improved mass spectrometric system. Due to the high energy resolution measurements and theoretical studies based on ab initio calculations of potential energy curves it is possible to assign the reaction products of the rare gas dimer decays to electronic transitions in the excited parent ion. The and also the ions are investigated because of obscurities in the production of their fragment ions. The unusual shape of the ionization cross section indicates that at sufficiently high electron energies the fragmentation channel of doubly charged contributes significantly to the ion yield. Additional measurements of the corresponding appearance energies confirm the existence of this second production channel.