H2–H fragmentation resulting from collisions of 10 keV H+3 on H2

H2–H fragmentation resulting from charge transfer collisions of 10 keV H+3 ions on H2 was studied using a flight-time-difference method. The gas pressure in the ion source was varied in order to get H+3 ions of different vibrational excitation. The measured energy and angle distributions of the dissociation fragments resulting from both weakly and highly excited H+3 ions show a broad continuum of translational energies in the center-of-mass frame of the projectile. It can be explained by dissociation of H3 in its electronic ground state. In addition, the translational energy spectrum belonging to weakly excited H+3 ions reveals some structure which points to a predissociation of the H3 molecule.