Theoretical study of dissociative recombination and vibrational excitation of the BF$_2^+$ ion by an electron impact

TL;DR

This paper presents a theoretical analysis of dissociative recombination and vibrational excitation of BF₂⁺ ions by electrons, providing cross-sections and rate coefficients across a wide temperature range.

Contribution

It introduces a combined normal modes and R-matrix approach to compute electron-ion scattering for BF₂⁺, a novel application for this molecular ion.

Findings

Cross-sections for dissociative recombination and vibrational excitation calculated.

Thermally-averaged rate coefficients provided for 10-3000 K.

Method demonstrates effective modeling of electron-molecule interactions.

Abstract

Cross-sections for dissociative recombination and electron-impact vibrational excitation of the BF$^+_2$ molecular ion are computed using a theoretical approach that combines the normal modes approximation for the vibrational states of the target ion and use of the UK R-matrix code to evaluate electron-ion scattering matrices for fixed geometries of the ion. Thermally-averaged rate coefficients are obtained from the cross-sections for temperatures in the 10-3000 K range.