Etats moléculaires superexcités d'importance astrophysique: recombinaison dissociative et spectroscopie – SUMOSTAI

The dissociaitve recombination of electrons with molecular ions(AB+ + e- -> A + B where A and B may be atoms or molecules) is one of the fundamental processes in molecular clouds in interstellar space since it governs the abundance of small molecular ions. These in turn are the building blocks of ion-molecule reaction which eventually may lead to the formation of more complex systems in the interstellar medium. We propose to carry out benchmark calculations for the reaction H2+ + e- -> H + H which should serve as reference for experimentalists and theoreticians working in this field. Such calculations are necessary because at this time agreement between experiment and theory including the absolute average cross section as well as the resonances and their intensities and widths has not been obtained for any molecule. Our calculations will be based on a novel approach which combines ab initio R-matrix calculations, dynamic scattering calculations and spectroscopic methods. More generally we also propose to develop an analytic "spectroscopic" approach to dissociative recombination which should be applicable to larger molecules for which a full first principles approach is not feasible. Finally, this project is motivated by the desire to pass on the knowledge present in the proposing groups to a new generation of molecular physicists.