Storage-ring study of the mutual neutralization of N+ with O

The double ion storage ring DESIREE has been used in combination with position- and time-sensitive detectors to study the mutual neutralization of N+ with O− at 40 meV collision energy. Several previously unassigned spectral features observed in a recent single-pass merged-beams experiment at 7 meV collision energy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 083401 (2018)], were also observed in the present experiment. It was found that neutralization channels of the first metastable state of the cation [N+(1D), τ ≈ 256 s] could explain the majority of these features, while the second metastable state [N+(1S), τ ≈ 0.9 s] was not found to contribute significantly. The branching ratios into the different electronically excited states of N were determined and found to be in good agreement between the two experiments. Theoretical calculations using the multichannel Landau-Zener model were found to yield good results for a number of channels, but could not describe some observed contributions, possibly due to the presence of other processes not accounted for in the model.