Two-fragment coincidence studies of molecular Coulomb explosions induced by heavy ion impact

Time-of-flight (TOF) spectroscopy was used to sutdy the ionic species produced in collisions of 40 MeV Ar13+ with molecular oxygen. Ions from the dissociation of molecular ions having charges as high as 10+ were observed. The flight times of the first ion and the difference in flight times between the first and second ions of binary dissociation events were recorded event-by-event, thereby retaining their correlation. Off-line sorting of the data provided TOF and time difference spectra containing well resolved peaks associated with each of the charge division pairs produced in the dissociation process. (orig.)