title: A discharge investigation of hydrogen and deuterium atom formation, and parahydrogen and orthodeuterium reconversion.
abstract: Hydrogen is flowed through a mild tesla-coil discharge and trapped at 3.8 K: New infrared absorptions of H2 are induced by interaction with trapped H atoms and H- anions. High purity parahydrogen and orthodeuterium samples are 1%-9% reconverted depending on the discharge pressure and recombination of atoms. Annealing the solid samples to 7 K reveals growth in p-H2 induced by o-H2, which shows that H atom recombination produces thermal nuclear spin populations. Similar results are found in discharge experiments with HD and on annealing solid HD. The observed increase in induced HD absorption by J = 1, H2 and D2 molecules formed on recombination gives approximately 1% for the H[D] atom concentration in our solid HD samples.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904-4319, USA. lsa@virginia.edu
authors.forename: Lester
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Andrews
authors.forename: Xuefeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang