Fragmentation of doubly charged HDO, H₂O, and D₂O molecules induced by proton and monocharged fluorine beam impact at 3 keV

Doubly charged ions HDO²⁺, H₂O²⁺, and D₂O²⁺ were prepared selectively to triplet or singlet excited states in collisions with F⁺ or H⁺ projectiles at 3 keV. Excitation energies of dications following two-body or three-body dissociation channels were measured and compared with recent calculations using ab initio multi-reference configuration interaction method [Gervais et al., J. Chem. Phys. 131, 024302 (2009)]. For HDO²⁺, preferential cleavage of O–H rather than O–D bond has been observed and the ratio between the populations of the fragmentation channels OD⁺-H⁺ and OH⁺-D⁺ were measured. The kinetic energy release has been measured and compared with previous experiments