CHARGE TRANSFER AND DISSOCIATIVE CHARGE TRANSFER BETWEEN RARE-GAS IONS AND MOLECULAR NITROGEN

The reaction systems He+, Ne+, and Ar+N2 giving charge transfer and dissociative charge transfer have been studied for low collision energies. Kinetic-energy distributions and angular distributions of N2+ and N+ have been measured. In all cases the reactions proceed via a variety of endothermic or exothermic channels. Product ions are found to be scattered at large c.m. scattering angles, but do not appear to be Isotropic in the c.m. system. For dissociative charge transfer, the data are consistent with a two-step process involving first an electron transfer followed by predissociation. It is emphasized that these low-energy charge-transfer reactions are not conceptionally different from ion-molecule (reactive) collisions.