Cross sections for C+ and O+ production in the collision of CO2+ ions with atomic He

Abstract

>From the theoretical point of view, the problem of the dissociation of molecules induced by collisions is complex due to the coupling of the electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom, thus few theoretical approach exist that can compare directly with experiment. In this work an experimental and theoretical study of the total cross section for fragmentation of CO2+ ions into the C+ and O+ product channels induced by collisions with atomic He for projectile energies from I to 10 keV is presented. Our preliminary results show that the cross section for the C+ fragment is higher than the cross section for O+ fragment and both grow monotonically, although our theoretical results show larger cross sections at low projectile energies.