Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 162
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50073-y

Regular Article

Prompt and delayed fragmentation of bromouracil cations ionized by multiply charged ions^*

¹ CIMAP, UMR 6252–CEA/CNRS/ENSICAEN/Unicaen, Boulevard Henri Becquerel, BP 5133, 14070 Caen Cedex 5, France
² Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, Esplanade de la Paix, CS 14032, 14032 Caen Cedex 5, France
³ Laboratoire Collisions Agrégats Réactivité, IRSAMC, Université de Toulouse, UPS, CNRS, 31062 Toulouse, France
⁴ Université Paris 13, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, CNRS UMR 7538, 93430 Villetaneuse, France

^a e-mail: huber@ganil.fr

Received: 23 January 2014
Received in final form: 6 March 2014
Published online: 27 June 2014

Abstract

The fragmentation of singly and multiply charged 5-bromouracil molecules (C₄H₃N₂O₂Br) induced by collisions with slow multiply charged ions has been studied. The emission of neutral fragments as well as charge separating decay channels are identified as a function of the projectile charge state. In the first case, delayed loss of neutral moieties, occurring on a μs time scale, indicates a wider internal energy distribution resulting in a power law decay. In the second case, the most important decay channels, leading to the formation of Br⁺, HNCO⁺ and CO⁺/NHCH⁺, are discussed showing that in many processes intramolecular H-migration occurs before fragmentation. Furthermore, molecular rearrangement may lead to delayed charge separating processes. Although the dication of bromouracil is unstable, smaller doubly charged systems created by the loss of neutral fragments are found to be (meta) stable.