Charge-transfer reaction of 14,15N+(3P J)+N2(1Σ+g) from thermal to 100 eV. Crossed-beam and scattering-cell guided-ion beam experiments

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Abstract
We have studied the charge-transfer reaction of ground-state N+(3PJ) ions with N2(1Σ+g) from thermal to 40 and 100 eV in the center-of-mass frame with the Utah guided-ion beam mass spectrometer and the Trento crossed-beam guided-ion beam experiment. Although the formation of N+2(X 2Σ+g) is endothermic by only 1.043 eV, the charge-transfer process to yield N+2 is not observed until approximately 2.8 eV. Studies using isotopically labeled 15N+ ions demonstrate that electron- and atom-transfer channels start at the same energy and have similar energy dependencies until about 6 eV, a result that implies a symmetric but acyclic N+3 intermediate. We discuss the mechanism for this reaction by means of state correlation diagrams that demonstrate that the charge-transfer reaction must involve strong nonadiabatic effects.