Rotational Transitions of CO+ Induced by Atomic Hydrogen

• The CO+ molecular ion has been observed in photon-dominated regions. Recent modeling has not been able to explain the abundances of CO+ in these regions. The most abundant collision partners are believed to be hydrogen atoms, hydrogen molecules, and electrons. The reactions of these species with CO+ have been studied previously and found to be fast. The only inelastic processes studied before were collisions of CO+ with electrons. Here we investigate the inelastic collisions of CO+ with hydrogen atoms. We argue that this can be done on the lowest triplet electronic state. This implies that CO+ ions, in a hydrogen atom dominated surrounding, experiences a few inelastic collisions before reacting. Rotationally inelastic state-to-state cross sections ( ) are presented together with state-resolved thermal rate coefficients. The results suggest that the rotationally inelastic collision cross sections can be of comparable magnitude to the reactive ones. Implications for the rotational temperature of CO+ in PDRs are discussed. To perform the calculations, a potential energy surface is fitted using the reproducing-kernel Hilbert space method based on multireference configuration-interaction calculations employing the aug-cc-pVQZ basis set.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Teoretisk kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Theoretical Chemistry (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Astronomi, astrofysik och kosmologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Atom- och molekylfysik och optik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics (hsv//eng)

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