Kinetic energy distributions of product ions from singly and multiply ionized C₂H₂ molecules induced by 0.8 MeV C⁺ collisions

Abstract

We measure kinetic energy distributions (KEDs) of product ions from singly and multiply ionized acetylene, [r+*]C₂H₂ (r = 1–4), generated as intermediate states prior to fragmentation in collisions between C₂H₂ and 0.8 MeV C⁺ ions, in single-electron capture conditions. The KEDs are systematically obtained as functions of the charge state r by performing coincidence measurements between momentum imaging of the product ions and counting of the number of emitted electrons. The KEDs of the fragment ions exhibit a variety of dependences on r, reflecting the variation of fragmentation dynamics and dominant fragmentation pathways. In particular, the KEDs of C₂⁺ present a characteristic dependence on r because of the different symmetries of charge distributions in three-body fragmentation.