Enormous Isotope Effects on Charge Transfer in Slow Collisions of He2+ with H, D, and T

Probabilities and cross sections for charge transfer by He2+ impact on atomic hydrogen (H), deuterium (D), and tritium (T) at low collision energies are calculated using the END approach. Differences by orders of magnitude are observed between the cross sections for H, D, and T. A method is introduced to separate the contributions of charge transfer mechanisms due to radial and rotational coupling. The large differences observed for H, D, and T are attributed to isotope effects in the rotational coupling mechanism.