Ternary recombination of excited Ar+(2P1/2) ions. II. Internal states of nascent Ar2+ and a novel view on the elementary recombination processes

Abstract

Electronic states and internal energies of stabilized Ar2+ ions resulting from ternary collisions of Ar+(P1/22) with argon atoms are analyzed at close to thermal conditions (E/N = 1 Td). For the former, a quasiadiabatic behavior has been observed with the electronic states of the stabilized dimer ions almost exclusively asymptotically correlating to the P1/22 state of the colliding atomic ion. Transitions to the electronic states with the P3/22 asymptote are of only marginal importance. The internal energies of stabilized dimer ions are found around the P1/22 dissociation limit, with a non-negligible number of the ions formed in rotationally metastable states. The calculations performed for Ar+(P1/22) are compared with selected data obtained for Ar+(P3/22). Qualitatively, the same behavior is seen for both types of ions. The results obtained for both types of Ar+ ions lead us to the conclusion that the simple picture of the ternary recombination of Ar+ ions generally shared in the literature will have to be replaced by a more complex one.