Mobilities of doubly charged rare-gas ions in their parent gases

The mobilities of the doubly charged rare-gas ions He2+, Ne2+, Ar2+, Kr2+, and Xe2+ in their parent gases have been determined in a drift-tube mass-spectrometer apparatus. The finding of more than one mobility for each of the doubly charged ions (with the exception of He2+) is attributed to the presence of the 3P, 1D, and 1S long-lived, lowest-energy states of these ions. At 300 K the reduced mobilities (in units of cm2/V sec) extrapolated to zero field have the values μ0(He2+ in He) = 18.3; μ0(Ne2+ in Ne) = 6.5(1D), 7.0(3P), 8.5(1S); μ0(Ar2+ in Ar) = 2.7(3P), approx. 2.2(1D); μ0(Kr2+ in Kr) = 1.11 and 1.28; μ0(Xe2+ in Xe) = 0.65 and 0.75. The measured values are accurate to +- 3%