A further study of HCO+ dissociative recombination

Abstract
The rate coefficient for the dissociative recombination of HCO+ has been measured using a new flowing afterglow technique which employs a movable Langmuir probe to measure electron density and a movable mass spectrometer to measure ion density, both as a function of distance along the flow. A value of 2.2×10−7 cm3 s−1 has been found at 300 K. An analysis of the excitation state of the ions indicates that more than 93% are in the v=0 state while the rest have ∼0.1 eV of internal energy. A discussion of recent theoretical controversy concerning this ion is given.