American Physical Society, Physical Review A, 1(87), 2013
DOI: 10.1103/physreva.87.013402
Full text: Unavailable
The photofragmentation of the water cation H2O+ through dicationic states has been studied at 35.0±0.2 nm (35.4±0.3 eV) and 21.8±0.2 nm (56.8±0.5 eV) with a crossed ion-photon beams experiment at the free electron laser FLASH. The dissociation of the dications is found to be similar at the two wavelengths and to proceed into O0+2H+, OH++H+, and O++H2+, with determined ratios σOH++H+/σO++H2+=4.2±0.3 and σOH++H+/σO0+2H+>0.7. The measured kinetic-energy releases for these processes are consistent with three-body breakup (O0+2H+) occurring mainly through the 2 3 A′′ and 2 1 A′′ states of H2O2+ and two-body breakup (OH++H+) occurring through X 3 A′′, 1 3 A′, and 1 1 A′′ states of H2O2+, as predicted in a recent theoretical study [ Gervais et al. J. Chem. Phys. 131 024302 (2009)]. In addition to the kinetic-energy releases, we also report on fragment correlation in the three-body channel where the two protons carry the major part of the released momentum.