THE MOBILITY OF NEGATIVE CHARGES IN LIQUID-HYDROGEN

There is a great difference in behavior of e- in liquid hydrogen and h elium despite the fact that the adopted theories of the mobility are q uite similar. Recently, Levchenko and Mezhov-Deglin (Journal of Low Te mperature Physics, 89, 457 (1992)) reported large discrepancies of the mobility of the electrons in liquid hydrogen from estimates based on the theory that the electrons are trapped in bubbles forming atomlike structures (''bubblonium''). They properly suggested that these deviat ions are related to the existence in liquid hydrogen of another, metas table type of negative charge carrier. The subject of the current pape r is the physical explanation of the existence of two types of carrier s in liquid hydrogen. We attribute the second type of carriers to the cluster ion H-(H-2)x, which is created by the formation of solid hydro gen around a bound state of a hydride ion. We provide estimates for th e radius and the kinetics of degradation of the ''snowball'' formed ar ound the H- ion on the basis of energy diagrams for a hydride ion subm erged in liquid hydrogen.