FORMATION OF LONG LIVED CHn2+ AND CDn2+ DICATIONS

Y. Levy#, A. Bar-David#, I. Ben-Itzhak*, I. Gertner#, and B. Rosner#

#Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa, 32000, Israel
*J.R. Macdonald Laboratory, Physics Department, Kansas State University, 
Manhattan, KS 66506 USA

We present measurements of the production cross sections of CDn2+ (and 
CHn2+) molecular ions from the respective CDm+ (m?n) molecular ions in fast 
charge stripping collisions with Ar atoms. Long lived CD22+, CD42+ and 
CD52+ dications were observed. In contrast, no CD2+ or CD32+ were detected. 
CD42+ and CD52+ were created only from CD4+ and CD5+, respectively, while 
CD22+ was formed from all CDm+ (m=2-5) molecular ions. The mean lifetime of 
CD22+ was measured to be 3.8?1.1 ms and a lower limit for CD4+ and CD5+, 
respectively.