Isotope effect in charge-transfer collisions of H with He^{+}

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of the isotope effect arising from the replacement of H by T in the charge-transfer collision H(n=2) + He+(1s) at low energy. Using a quasimolecular approach and a time-dependent wave-packet method, we compute the cross sections for the reaction including the effects of the nonadiabatic radial and rotational couplings. For H(2s) + He+(1s) collisions, we find a strong isotope effect at energies below 1 eV/amu for both singlet and triplet states. We find a much smaller isotopic dependence of the cross section for H(2p) + He+(1s) collisions in triplet states, and no isotope effect in singlet states. We explain the isotope effect on the basis of the potential energy curves and the nonadiabatic couplings, and we evaluate the importance of the isotope effect on the charge-transfer rate coefficients.