Effect of transmission losses on measured parameters in multi-ion coincidence momentum spectrometers

摘要

We address the effect of transmission losses on the measured kinematic parameters of molecular fragmentation processes in a time-of-flight based ion momentum spectrometer. We suggest means to correct for these losses for two-body fragmentation having isotropic distribution. As an example, we discuss the kinetic energy release spectrum observed in recoil ion momentum spectrometer of doubly ionized nitrogen molecules formed upon high energy electron impact. Further, we highlight the difficulties in calculating losses in many-body fragmentation and anisotropic emissions and show that such effects cannot be accounted without employing additional information about the process. In many cases, such information cannot be extracted from the observed data in the experiment and thus we have to rely on careful assumptions.