DISSOCIATION OF MULTICHARGED CO MOLECULAR-IONS PRODUCED IN COLLISIONS WITH 97-MEV AR-14+ - TOTAL-KINETIC-ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS

Transient molecular ions of COq+ (where q = 2-7) were produced in single collisions of 97-MeV Ar14+ projectiles with neutral CO molecules. The resulting dissociation products were identified by coincidence time-of-flight spectroscopy in which the time of flight of the first ion to reach the detector and the time difference between the first ion and its partner were recorded event by event. An iterative matrix-transformation procedure was employed to convert the time-difference spectra for the prominent dissociation channels into total-kinetic-energy distributions. Analysis of the total-kinetic-energy distributions and comparisons with the available data for CO2+ and CO3+ from synchrotron radiation experiments led to the conclusion that ionization by Ar-ion impact populates states having considerably higher excitation energies than those accessed by photoionization.