The p-H symmetry breaking in dissociative ionization of H2 due to the molecular ion interaction with the ejected electron

Abstract

We propose a novel mechanism of electron localization and molecular symmetry breaking in dissociative photoionization of the H${}_2$ molecule. The Coulomb field of the ejected electron can induce transition of the remaining H${}_2^{+}$ ion from the gerade ${}^2{\Sigma }_g^1(1s{\sigma }_g)$ to the ungerade ${}^2{\Sigma }_u^1(2p{\sigma }_u)$ electronic state when the nuclei in a bound vibrational state are near the outer turning point. The superposition of this process with a direct transition to vibrational continuum should produce a non-gerade ionic state which results in observed asymmetry in the $p$-H ejection relative to the electron ejection direction at a small kinetic energy release.

5 pages, 5 figures

Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Selective Bond Breaking in CO${}_2^{2+}$ Induced by Photoelectron Recoil