Collision-induced dissociation of oriented CO⁺ ions. Probing potential energy curves by ion collision spectrometry

Abstract

Translational energy spectra of C⁺ and O⁺ fragments produced in the collision-induced dissociation of ground state CO⁺ ions have yielded kinetic energy release distribution functions. These are compared with theoretical simulations that have been carried out by reflecting the probability distribution of the zeroth vibrational state of the ²Σ state onto various low-lying excited state potential energy curves of the CO⁺ molecular ion which have been computed using contemporary ab initio molecular orbital techniques.