Dissociative recombination of cold HeH${}^{+}$ ions

Abstract

The HeH${}^{+}$ cation is the simplest molecular prototype of the indirect dissociative recombination (DR) process that proceeds through electron capture into Rydberg states of the corresponding neutral molecule. This Letter develops the first application of our recently developed energy-dependent frame transformation theory to the indirect DR processes. The theoretical model is based on the multichannel quantum-defect theory with the vibrational basis states computed using exterior complex scaling (ECS) of the nuclear Hamiltonian. The ab initio electronic R-matrix theory is adopted to compute quantum defects as functions of the collision energy and of the internuclear distance. The resulting DR rates are convolved over the beam energy distributions relevant to a recent experiment at the Cryogenic Storage Ring, giving good agreement between the experiment and the theory.

5 pages and 5 figures

References in corpus (3)

• First astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion (HeH${}^{+}$)
• Inelastic low-energy collisions of electrons with HeH${}^{+}$: rovibrational excitation and dissociative recombination
• ab initio frame transformation calculations of direct and indirect dissociative recombination rates of HeH+ + e-

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Unified treatment of resonant and non-resonant mechanisms in dissociative recombination: benchmark study of CH${}^{+}$
• Kinetic rate coefficients for electron-driven collisions with CH${}^{+}$: dissociative recombination and rovibronic excitation
• Chemistry and ro-vibrational excitation of HeH${}^{+}$ in the Planetary Nebula NGC 7027
• Competing Ionization and Dissociation: Extension of the energy-dependent frame transformation to the gerade symmetry of H${}_2$
• Dissociative recombination of N${}_2$H${}^{+}$: A revisited study