Fragmentation branching ratios of highly excited hydrocarbon molecules CnH and their cations CnH+ (n<or=4).
We have measured fragmentation branching ratios of neutral C(n)H and C(n)H(+) cations produced in high velocity (4.5 a.u) collisions between incident C(n)H(+) cations and helium atoms. Electron capture gives rise to excited neutral species C(n)H and electronic excitation to excited cations C(n)H(+). Thanks to a dedicated setup, based on coincident detection of all fragments, the dissociations of the neutral and cationic parents were recorded separately and in a complete way. For the fragmentation of C(n)H, the H-loss channel is found to be dominant, as already observed by other authors. By contrast, the H-loss and C-loss channels equally dominate the two-fragment break up of C(n)H(+) species. For these cations, we provide the first fragmentation data (n>2). Results are also discussed in the context of astrochemistry.
Tuna
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T
Institut de Physique Nucléaire, CNRS-IN2P3 and Université Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France.
Chabot
M
M
Pino
T
T
Désesquelles
P
P
LePadellec
A
A
Martinet
G
G
Barat
M
M
Lucas
B
B
Mezdari
F
F
Montagnon
L
L
Van-Oanh
N T
NT
Lavergne
L
L
Lachaize
A
A
Carpentier
Y
Y
Béroff
K
K