Dissociative recombination in low-energy e-H₂⁺and e-H₃⁺collisions

A new technique for the measurement of dissociative-recombination cross section functions using an ion-trap apparatus has been applied to the recombination of H 2 + and H 3 + in the energy range 0.3-1.0 eV. The energy dependence of the dissociative-recombination cross section is measured to be E -1.15 and E -0.74 for e-H 2 + and e-H 3 + collisions, respectively. Good agreement is obtained with results from earlier experiments utilising inclined electron and ion beams.