BREAKDOWN OF SPIN CONSERVATION FOR COLLISIONS OF CHLORINE IONS WITH ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR GASES

High resolution translational energy spectroscopy has been performed on 3 keV Cl+ ions in collisions with Ar, He, N2, O2 and CO. The target species included atoms and molecules in singlet and triplet ground states. Spectroscopically, N+ and Cl+ ions are very similar, both have 3P ground states and have similar low-lying metastable states 1S and 1D. Correspondingly, their energy loss spectra are very similar. In collisions of Cl+ with N2, CO and Ar a weak structure is observed which is identified as the spin non-conserved transition 3P --> 1D in the Cl+ ion.