Electron-impact fragmentation of Cl2-

merged beam technique has been used to investigate the fragmentation of the Cl ion in collisions with electrons over an energy range of 0–200 eV. We have measured absolute cross sections for detachment, detachment plus dissociation and dissociation processes. Over the energy range studied, the dominant breakup mechanism is dissociation. Dissociation is relatively enhanced in the e–+Cl collision system due to the suppression of the normally dominant detachment process, as a result of the large difference between the equilibrium internuclear distances of the Cl2 and Cl ground state potential curves. A prominent structure is observed just above the threshold in the Cl–+Cl+e– dissociation channel. It is proposed that the structure is a resonance associated with production and rapid decay of an excited state of the doubly charged Cl ion. A plausible mechanism for production of the di-anionic state based on an excitation plus capture process is suggested.

Single and double detachment from H-

Absolute cross sections for single and double detachment from H– following electron impact have been measured over a range of collision energies from the thresholds to 170 eV. The measurements were made using a magnetic storage ring. The ions in the ring were merged with a monoenergetic electron beam and neutral and positively charged fragments were detected. We cover larger energy ranges than in many of the previous experiments, and this is the first time both single and double detachment have been measured simultaneously. This allows us to present accurate ratios between the single and double detachment cross sections. On the basis of these ratio measurements we discuss possible mechanisms leading to double detachment.

Radiative lifetimes of metastable states of negative ions

We present a technique for measuring the radiative lifetimes of metastable states of negative ions that involves the use of a heavy-ion storage ring. The method has been applied to investigate the radiative decay of the np3 2P1/2 levels of Te–(n=5) and Se–(n=4) and the 3p3 2D state of Si– for which the J=3/2 and 5/2 levels were unresolved. All of these states are metastable and decay primarily by emission of E2 and M1 radiation. Multi Configuration Dirac-Hartree-Fock calculations of rates for the transitions in Te– and Se– yielded lifetimes of 0.45 s and 4.7 s, respectively. The measured values agree well with these predicted values. In the case of the 2D state of Si–, however, our measurement was only able to set a lower limit on the lifetime. The upper limit of the lifetime that can be measured with our apparatus is set by how long the ions can be stored in the ring, a limit determined by the rate of collisional detachment. Our lower limit of 1 min for the lifetime of the 2D state is consistent with both the calculated lifetimes of 162 s for the 2D3/2 level and 27.3 h for the 2D5/2 level reported by O'Malley and Beck and 14.5 h and 12.5 h, respectively, from our Breit-Pauli calculations.