Potential Curves for the Dissociative Recombination of CO+

Abstract

Large scale ab initio calculations are reported for the diabatic (3)Π, (1)Π, (1)Σ(+), (1)Δ, (3)Σ(+), and (3)Δ valence states of CO that provide routes for the dissociative recombination of the ground electronic and vibrational state of CO(+). The most important routes are 2(3)Π, 3(3)Π, 2(1)Π, and D'(1)Σ(+). For electron energies below 0.2961 eV, from the v = 0 ion level, the first two states can generate excited atoms, O((1)D) and C((1)D), but the last two states yield only ground state atoms. From v = 0, hot ground state atoms are generated at 0 eV from each of the four states with C and O having 1.67 and 1.25 eV of kinetic energy, respectively. The potential curves are compared to prior calculations and experiments.