Metastable fragment production following electron impact on CO₂

Abstract

An apparatus is described which is suitable for studying dissociative excitation of molecules into metastable fragments and results are presented for electron impact on CO2. Both Rydberg and non-Rydberg contributions have been observed in the resultant fragments. Among the processes which are probably being observed are those which yield the following fragments, CO(X1 Sigma g+)+O(HR), CO(a3 Pi )+O(5S), CO(a3 Pi )+O(HR) and C(3P)+O(5S)+O(HR). The results are compared with those of other workers.