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Dissociative recombination of the polyatomic ions D3O+ and H3O+ with electrons have been studied at the heavy-ion storage ring CRYRING (Manne Siegbahn Laboratory, Stockholm University). Absolute cross sections have been determined from 0.001 eV to 0.25 eV center-of-mass energy for D3O+ and from 0.001 eV to 28 eV for H3O+. The cross sections are large (7.3×10−13 cm2 for D3O+ and 3.3×10−12 cm2 for H3O+ at 0.001 eV). At low energies, the cross sections for D3O+ are E−1 energy dependent whereas it is slightly steeper for H3O+. A similar E−1 energy dependence was also observed by Mul et al. [J. Phys. B 16, 3099 (1983)] with a merged electron-ion beam technique for both H3O+ and D3O+ and by Vejby-Christensen et al. [Astrophys. J. 483, 531 (1997)] with the ASTRID storage ring in Denmark, who presented relative cross sections for H3O+. A resonance has been observed around 11 eV for H3O+. It reflects an electron capture to Rydberg states converging to an excited ionic core. A similar structure was reported by Vejby-Christensen et al. Our absolute measurements are in fairly good agreement with those from Mul et al., which were first divided by 2 (Mitchell, 1999, private communication) and from Heppner et al. [Phys. Rev. A 13, 1000 (1976)] for H3O+. Thermal rates were deduced from the measured cross sections for electron temperatures ranging from 50 K to 30 000 K. At 300 K, the thermal rate is equal to 7.6×10−7 cm3 s−1 for H3O+ and to 3.5×10−7 cm3 s−1 for D3O+. Complete branching ratios for all the possible product channels have been determined from 0 eV to 0.005 eV center-of-mass energy for D3O+ and at 0 eV for H3O+, using a well-characterized transmission grid in front of an energy-sensitive surface-barrier detector. No isotope effect was observed within the experimental uncertainties. The three-body break-up channel OX+X+X (where X stands for H or D) is found to occur for 67%–70% of the dissociations. Water or heavy water is produced with an 18%–17% probability and the production of oxygen atoms is negligible. These results support the three-body break-up dominance already found by Vejby-Christensen et al. for the DR of H3O+ in a similar heavy-ion storage ring experiment. However, even if the general trend is the same for both storage rings, significant differences have been observed and will be discussed.

Very intense neutrino beams and large neutrino detectors will be needed in order to enable the discovery of CP violation in the leptonic sector. We propose to use the proton linac of the European Spallation Source currently under construction in Lund, Sweden to deliver, in parallel with the spallation neutron production, a very intense, cost effective and high performance neutrino beam. The baseline program for the European Spallation Source linac is that it will be fully operational at 5 MW average power by 2022, producing 2 GeV 2.86 ms long proton pulses at a rate of 14 Hz. Our proposal is to upgrade the linac to 10 MW average power and 28 Hz, producing 14 pulses/s for neutron production and 14 pulses/s for neutrino production. Furthermore, because of the high current required in the pulsed neutrino horn, the length of the pulses used for neutrino production needs to be compressed to a few µs with the aid of an accumulator ring. A long baseline experiment using this Super Beam and a megaton underground Water Cherenkov detector located in existing mines 300-600 km from Lund will make it possible to discover leptonic CP violation at 5 σ significance level in up to 50% of the leptonic Dirac CP-violating phase range. This experiment could also determine the neutrino mass hierarchy at a significance level of more than 3 σ if this issue will not already have been settled by other experiments by then. The mass hierarchy performance could be increased by combining the neutrino beam results with those obtained from atmospheric neutrinos detected by the same large volume detector. This detector will also be used to measure the proton lifetime, detect cosmological neutrinos and neutrinos from supernova explosions. Results on the sensitivity to leptonic CP violation and the neutrino mass hierarchy are presented.

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The absolute dissociative recombination and absolute dissociative excitation rate coefficients and cross sections have been determined for N2+ and electrons for collision energies between 10 meV and 30 eV. The ion storage ring CRYRING has been used in combination with an imaging technique with a position-and-time-sensitive detector. Information is retrieved on the ion beam vibrational state populations and on the product branching in the dissociative recombination process at 0 eV collisions. A hollow cathode ion source has been used to lower the vibrational excitation in the ion beam; a more traditional hot-cathode ion source was used as well. The most important findings are the following. The rate coefficient for an N2+ ion beam (46%, v=0, 27% v=1) versus electron temperature (K) is α(Te)=1.75(±0.09)×10−7(Te/300)−0.30 cm3 s−1. The dissociative recombination rate is found to be weakly dependent on the N2+ vibrational level. At 0 eV collision energy, the v=0 product branching is found to be 0.37(8):0.11(6):0.52(4) for N(4S)+N(2D):N(2P)+N(4S):N(2D)+N(2D) fragments. The dissociative recombination cross section does not have a high-energy peak as was found in a number of lighter molecular systems. The dissociative excitation signal starts only slightly above the energy threshold for dissociation, and peaks near 25 eV. From the dissociative excitation data and literature data, information is retrieved on the dissociative ionization of N2+. The comparison of these results with earlier DR measurements is extensively discussed.