0000000001071250
AUTHOR
John D. Alexander
Fragmentation of anthracene C14H10, acridine C13H9N and phenazine C12H8N2 ions in collisions with atoms
International audience; We report experimental total, absolute, fragmentation cross sections for anthracene C14H10, acridine C13H9N, and phenazine C12H8N2 ions colliding with He at center-of-mass energies close to 100 eV. In addition, we report results for the same ions colliding with Ne, Ar, and Xe at higher energies. The total fragmentation cross sections for these three ions are the same within error bars for a given target. The measured fragment mass distributions reveal significant contributions from both delayed (≫10−12 s) statistical fragmentation processes as well as non-statistical, prompt (∼10−15 s), single atom knockout processes. The latter dominate and are often followed by sec…
Nonstatistical fragmentation of large molecules
International audience; We present experimental evidence for the dominance of prompt single-atom knockout in fragmenting collisions between large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon cations and He atoms at center-of-mass energies close to 100 eV. Such nonstatistical processes are shown to give highly reactive fragments. We argue that nonstatistical fragmentation is dominant for any sufficiently large molecular system under similar conditions.