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Published on: February 14, 2014
First observation of four-body breakup in electron recombination: C2D+5
W Geppert1, A Ehlerding, F Hellberg
1Department of Physics, AlbaNova, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract:
We report the first observation of four-body breakup in electron dissociative recombination of a molecular ion: C2D+5. In an ion storage ring experiment, the branching ratio for the process C2D+5 + e(-)-->C2D2 + D + D + D was determined to be 13%. This means that three covalent chemical bonds are broken as a result of the action of a single electron. This is the first time a four-body breakup of chemical bonds has been observed in a low-energy binary reaction.
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