Negative ion resonances in carbon monoxide: Probing dissociative electron attachment in CO by velocity slice imaging

Abstract: Dissociative electron attachment to CO leading to the formation of O− is studied using the velocityslice imaging technique. The angular distributions we obtained for the C(3P) and the C(1D) limits are found to beconsiderably different from a recent set of measurements [Tian et al., Phys. Rev. A88, 012708 (2013); Wang et al., J. Chem. Phys. 143, 066101(2015)] using a similar technique. The analysis of our results indicate incoherentcontributions from states of Σ and Π symmetries to both these dissociation channelsand rules out the need to invoke coherent excitation of several resonances, in contrast towhat has been done in the above publications. We try to correlate these resonances tothose observed in inelastic scattering and transmission experiments. We also confirm thepresence of a third dissociation channel leading to C(1S) limit. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2016, EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.