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Experimental Study on CH+ Formation from Doubly Charged Carbon and Molecular Hydrogen

Publication at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics |
2021

Abstract

We studied the reaction of doubly charged carbon C2+ (C iii) with molecular hydrogen, a possible source of the high, unexplained abundances of interstellar CH+. The experiment was carried out using the cryogenic linear 22-pole radio frequency ion trap.

The measured reaction rate coefficient amounts to (1.5 0.2) x 10(-10) cm(3) s(-1), nearly independently of the covered temperature range from 15 to 300 K. In the product distribution study, the C+ ion was identified as the dominant product of the reaction.

For the CH+ production, we determine an upper limit for the reaction rate coefficient at 2 x 10(-12) cm(3) s(-1).