Dissociative Electron Attachment to Polyatomic Molecules - IV : Methane

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the dissociative electron attachment process in Methane. Kinetic energy and angular distributions of H^{-} and CH_{2}^{-} fragment anions across the broad resonance about 10 eV is reported. Angular distribution of H^{-} ions changes from being perpendicular to forward-backward scattering across the resonance. Possibility of Jahn-Teller effect on excitation of the triply degenerate 1t2 molecular orbital is inferred.

14 pages, 8 figures