Effect of vibrational excitation on the dynamics of ion-molecule reactions

A new experimental technique for the study of vibrational effects on ion-molecule reaction cross sections is described. Vibrational and collision energy dependent cross sections are presented for proton and H atom transfer, charge transfer and collision induced dissociation reactions in various isotopic H2+ + H2 systems. Charge and proton transfer cross sections are presented for the reactions of H2+ and D2+ with Ar, N2, CO, and O2. All the reactions are shown to be highly influenced by avoided crossings between the ground and first excited potential energy surfaces. Because of the nature of the crossings, vibrational motion of the systems can cause both adiabatic and non-adiabatic behavior of the system. This makes the vibrational dependences of the various cross sections a very sensitive probe of the dynamics of the collisions particularly, their behavior in the region of the crossings. Evidence is seen for charge transfer between reagents as they approach each other, transition to and in some cases reactions on excited potential energy surfaces, competition between different channels, and strong coupling of proton and charge transfer channels which occurs only for two of the systems studied (H2+ + Ar, N2). Oscillatory structure is observed in the collision energy dependence of the endoergic H2+ (v = 0) + Ar charge transfer reaction for the first time, and a simple model which is commonly used for atom-atom charge transfer is used to fit the peaks. Finally a simple model is used to assess the importance of energy resonance and Franck-Condon effects on molecular charge transfer