Breakup dynamics and isotope effects in D2H+ and H2D+ dissociative recombination -: art. no. 064702

The breakup dynamics of D2H+ and H(2)D(+)following dissociative recombination with low energetic electrons has been studied combining two-dimensional imaging and storage ring techniques. The kinematical correlation between the hydrogen and deuterium atoms produced in the three-body channel was measured. We found that the three particles tend to dissociate with a geometry close to linear, and that the deuterium atom has a large probability to be at the center. The data also show that the remaining average internal excitation energy stored in the rotation of the D2H+ and H2D+ molecules corresponds to a temperature of less than 70 meV, much less than observed for the H-3(+) and D-3(+) species previously examined.