General features of the dissociative recombination of polyatomic molecules

¹ Building 200, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA
² Laboratoire Aimé Cotton du CNRS, Bâtiment 505, Université de Paris-Sud, 91405 Orsay, France
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK

^a Corresponding author: stpratt@anl.gov

Published online: 29 January 2015

Abstract

We discuss some aspects of a simple expression for the low-energy dissociative recombination cross section that applies when the recombination process is dominated by the indirect mechanism. In most previous applications, this expression has been applied to capture into vibrationally excited Rydberg states with the assumption that capture is always followed by prompt dissociation. Here we consider the dissociative recombination of larger polyatomic ions and electrons. More specifically, we consider capture into electronically core-excited Rydberg states, and begin to assess its potential importance for larger systems.