Dynamics of the Reaction of N2+ with H2, D2, and HD

Product-velocity-vector distributions have been determined for the reactive and inelastic scattering of N2+ by H2, D2, and HD. These distributions show that the reaction proceeds by a direct short-lived interaction rather than by a long-lived collision complex. Most products are scattered in the original direction of the N2+ projectile at a speed somewhat greater than calculated from the ideal stripping model. The internal excitation of N2D+ and N2H+ is very high and decreases somewhat with increasing scattering angle. For HD there is an isotope effect that favors N2H+ by large factors at small scattering angles, and N2D+ by smaller factors at large angles. The N2+ scattered from D2 shows very little elastic component, but does reveal an inelastic process which is probably the collisional dissociation of D2.