title: Dissociation energies of molecular hydrogen and the hydrogen molecular ion.
abstract: We have obtained improved values for the dissociation energies of molecular hydrogen and its ion by using a high-resolution pulse-amplified laser to probe the second dissociation limit. The onset of the vibrational continuum is observed by state-selective detection of the atomic products of dissociation, and several auxiliary measurements link the results to the ground state. The dissociation energies are accurate to 0.010-0.026 cm(-1), improving previous measurements by a factor of 3-7. Agreement with ab initio calculations is good for H2, D2, and their ions, but not for HD and HD+.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269, USA.
authors.forename: Y P
authors.initials: YP
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stanojevic
authors.forename: E E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Eyler