Dynamics of the Reactions of N2+ with CH4 and CD4

Product velocity vector distributions have been determined for the reactive and nonreactive scattering of N2+ by CH4, CD4, and Ne. In the most probable reactive events, N2H+ and N2D+ are scattered forward at almost exactly the velocity calculated from the ideal stripping model. At the higher projectile energies, the internal excitation of CH3 even for zero angle scattering is significant, and product internal excitation increases with increasing angle. A large isotope effect favoring abstraction of H over D was found. The nonreactive scattering showed the occurrence of highly inelastic collisions, even for small angle scattering, and a feature which may be due to the collisional electronic excitation of CH4 or of N2+ was discovered.