Excited electronic states of H3and their role in the dissociative recombination of H3+

Abstract

Accurate calculations of several electronically excited states of H₃ which are important in dissociative recombination of H₃⁺ are reported. These surfaces allow discussion of the dissociation products. For electron energies above 1 eV the dominant product is expected to be vibrationally excited H₂ (X¹ Sigma _g⁺)+H(2s or 2p). The threshold for directly producing H^- from ground state H₃⁺ is predicted to be 5.8 eV.