https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20158401001
The HD+ dissociative recombination rate coefficient at low temperature
1 Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
2 Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA
3 Laboratoire Ondes et Milieux Complexes UMR-6294 CNRS and Université du Havre, 25, rue Philippe Lebon, BP. 540, 76058 Le Havre, France
4 LPF, UFD Mathémathiques, Informatique Appliquée et Physique Fondamentale, University of Douala, PO Box 24157, Douala, Cameroun
5 Laboratoire Aimé Coton, CNRS-UPR-3321, Univ. Paris-Sud et Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, 91405 Orsay, France
a Corresponding author: A.Wolf@mpi-hd.mpg.de
Published online: 29 January 2015
The effect of the rotational temperature of the ions is considered for low-energy dissociative recombination (DR) of HD+. Merged beams measurements with HD+ ions of a rotational temperature near 300 K are compared to multichannel quantum defect theory calculations. The thermal DR rate coefficient for a Maxwellian electron velocity distribution is derived from the merged-beams data and compared to theoretical results for a range of rotational temperatures. Good agreement is found for the theory with 300 K rotational temperature. For a low-temperature plasma environment where also the rotational temperature assumes 10 K, theory predicts a considerably higher thermal DR rate coefficient. The origin of this is traced to predicted resonant structures of the collision-energy dependent DR cross section at few-meV collision energies for the particular case of HD+ ions in the rotational ground state.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2015
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
