Dissociative recombination of the CO2+ dication

Dissociative recombination of a doubly charged molecular ion CO2+ has been studied, using a heavy-ion storage ring. There are two final channels of th is reaction (C + O+ and O + C+) that were found to be of about equal streng th up to an energy of about 2 eV. The total recombination cross section (yi elding C or O) is found to be sigma = [2.2/E(eV)] X 10(-16) cm(2) for E les s than or equal to 1 eV, where E is the electron energy. This indicates tha t the recombination is of the direct type with a curve crossing between the initial state and some repulsive curve of the singly charged ion. Within a n accuracy of a factor of 2 we obtain a total recombination rate coefficien t alpha = 0.9 X 10(-7) cm(3) s(-1) at T= 300 K that is comparable to that o f CO+. [S1050-2947(99)51011-1].