Measurement of the rates of reaction of the ground and metastable excited states of O2+, NO+and O+with atmospheric gases at thermal energy

Abstract
Thermal-energy reaction rate coefficients and product ion distributions have been measured for reactions of both the ground state and metastable electronic states of O2+, NO+ and O+ with several neutral species, using a selected-ion flow tube. In general the excited-ion reaction rates are fast, frequently approaching the Langevin limit. Collisional quenching occurs for the reactions of NO+* with N2, O2 and H2 and the quenching rates have been determined. The ion source also provided a substantial yield of doubly charged O2 permitting some measurements of reaction rates of O22+.