DISSOCIATIVE RECOMBINATION WITH ION STORAGE-RINGS

The development of heavy-ion storage-cooler rings for atomic physics h as made it possible to produce high-quality beams of molecular ions th at are internally cold. The stored molecular-ion beam is immersed in a cold electron bath, which gives a beam of low divergence and small cr oss-sectional area. The electron cooler also serves as a target for el ectron-molecular ion collision experiments. This allows the study of d issociative recombination of cold molecules with respect to cross sect ions, branching ratios, and angular distributions at an unprecedented luminosity.