Optical study of charge exchange collisions between He+ and CO2

The optical emission between 2800 and 5000 Å resulting from collision of He⁺ with CO₂ has been investigated over a range of ion energies from 200 to 1500 eV. The strongest emission was in the ${\mathrm{CO}}_2^{+}{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}Ã}}^2\hspace{0.17em}\mathrm{II}{\mathrm{-X̃}}^2{\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}\Sigma }}_g$ band system which was found to have a cross section of ${\text{4× 10}}^{\text{−17}}\hspace{0.17em}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ at [sine wave] 200 eV. An upper limit for the cross section for the production of excited CO⁺ was determined to be of the order of ${\text{8× 10}}^{\text{−18}}\hspace{0.17em}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ . Two triplet lines of He were also observed with cross sections on the order of 10⁻¹⁹ cm².