Three-body fragmentation dynamics of amidogen and methylene radicals via dissociative recombination

We report the investigation into the three-body fragmentation of the triatomic molecules NH ₂ and CH ₂ via the process of dissociative recombination (DR). Recently reported analysis of experiments into the DR of the similar system H ₂O indicated that the DR process is violent, involving a large degree of geometrical change and energy distribution from the initial attachment of the free electron by the parent ion to the final dissociation step. Comparison of data from NH ₂ and CH ₂ with that of H ₂O gives a similar picture of the DR process, though there are significant differences in the results, not only in the branching fraction between the expected decay channels, but also in the distribution of the available reaction energy over the product hydrogen atoms as well as in the molecular geometry at the point of dissociation.