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Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Hot water from cold. The dissociative recombination of water cluster ions
R D Thomas1, V Zhaunerchyk, F Hellberg
1Department of Physics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm. rdt@fysik.su.se
Abstract:
Dissociative recombination of the Zundel cation D(5)O(2)(+) almost exclusively produces D + 2 D(2)O with a maximum kinetic energy release of 5.1 eV. An imaging technique is used to investigate the distribution of the available reaction energy among these products. Analysis shows that as much as 4 eV can be stored internally by the molecular fragments, with a preference for producing highly excited molecular fragments, and that the deuteron shows a nonrandom distribution of kinetic energies. A possible mechanism and the implications for these observations are addressed.
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