A brief survey is given of the experimental information which is presently available on dissociative recombination and the dynamically inverse process of associative ionization. The mechanisms by which the reactions can occur are described in terms of adiabatic potentialhyphen;energy curves of the ion and of the quasihyphen;molecule formed from the union of ion and electron. The paucity of detailed information about the relevant potentialhyphen;energy curves suggests that one focus attention upon hydrogen, the system about which the most is known.A mathematical theory is then constructed which takes as its basis ingredients a Coulombmdash;Born description of the scattering of ion and electron and an adiabatic, or perturbedhyphen;stationaryhyphen;state, treatment of atommdash;atom collisions. A very general approach is abandoned in favor of one based upon an approximate wavehyphen;function and which includes coupling of only a few entrance and finalhyphen;state channels. Equations are derived for the scattering amplitudes in the two sets of channels and formulas are given for the relevant cross sections.
展开▼
