Narrow resonances in dissociative electron attachment and vibrational excitation in H2

This progress report reviews briefly the recent theoretical work of Cizek, Horacek and Domcke(1,2). Narrow resonances are found in calculated cross sections for various processes in low-energy electron collisions with H-2 molecule. Closer inspection reveals many metastable states of H-2 with the lifetimes reaching As values. The properties of these states can qualitatively be understood within the local complex potential approximation. Resonances represent the orbiting states of H+H- with angular momenta J = 22 - 27. The existence of the molecular hydrogen anions has recently been confirmed by experiments (1), where these species are produced by sputtering of TiH2 and TiD2 targets with Cs+ ions with subsequent identification of H-2(-) by accelerator mass spectrometry.