Vibrational energy transfer during charge exchange in N2+ on N2 collisions

Vibration and translation interconversion processes are found to occur coincidently with charge transfer during collisions. Up to nine vibrational quanta are efficiently converted to product ion kinetic energy during exothermic charge transfer reactions. Endothermic charge transfer, in which translational energy is converted to vibrational excitation in the products, is also observed to occur efficiently at least up to a change in vibrational level of three.