A Van de Graaff accelerator facility has been used as a supersensitive mass spectrograph in a search for free +1/3|e| and +2/3|e| charged ions in helium gas. No such ions were found at a level of sensitivity better than 1 part in 3.9×{} 10¹⁴ He atoms. The mass ranges spanned were 0.13 to 7.5 amu for +1/3|e| ions and 0.27 to 15.0 amu for +2/3|e| ions.
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Boyd et al. (1979) studied this question.
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