THE DYNAMICS OF NEH-ASTERISK(P-3(2,0))-HCL COLLISIONAL AUTOIONIZATION( PRODUCTION IN NE)

The ionization of HCl molecules by thermal energy collisions with meta stable Ne atoms has been studied experimentally and theoretically. Th e integral elastic cross sections have been measured and analyzed, tog ether with the total ionization cross sections, to obtain an optical p otential able to describe the collision dynamics of the neutral reacta nts. The relative cross sections for NeH+ and NeD+ production in Ne-H Cl or DCl have been measured as a function of the collision energy. A theoretical calculation of the potential energy for the reactive Ne HCl+(A) --> NeH+ + Cl system has been performed by SCF, Cl, and CASSCF methods. The dynamics of NeH+ production is described by two theoreti cal models. The first one simply couples the semiclassical treatment o f Penning ionization with the Langevin criterion for the postionizatio n ion-molecule reaction. The second model also assumes the statistical phase space theory to describe the partitioning of the Ne...HCl+(A) i onic complex among the possible final products.