Influence of Internal States on Ion-Molecule Reactions in a Temperature Variable 22-Pole Ion Trap. Spectroscopy and Reaction Kinetics

Chemical reactions between ions and neutral gas are very important in the interstellar medium, since they usually have much lower barriers than neutral-neutral reactions. Thus, they are more likely to take place at low temperatures. In this work, the endothermic reactions of CH2D+, H2D+, and N+ with H2 have been investigated in a temperature variable 22-pole ion trap. Under the chosen conditions inside the trap the chemical processes are comparable to those in typical astrophysical environments.

At low temperatures, the reactions mentioned above depend very sensitively on the translational and internal energies of the reaction partners. This dependence can be utilized to gain information on the energy levels or the population of the internal states. Based on this sensitivity, two different types of investigations were performed in this work. High resolution spectra of CH2D+ were obtained, resulting in improved predictions for pure rotational transitions. First steps were made towards a detailed understanding of the processes in laser induced reactions, often leading to non-Gaussian line profiles. In addition, the influence of internal states on ion-molecule reactions allowed to determine the purity of para hydrogen samples and yielded insight into the reaction kinetics of the system N+ + H2.