Three-body fragmentation dynamics of the cyclopropane trication following 5.8-MeV/u Ni19+impact

The three -body fragmentation dynamics of cyclopropane (C3H6) induced by Ni19+ ions at an impact energy of 5.8 MeV/u are studied using a cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy (COLTRIMS) reaction microscope. Two completely measured three -body fragmentation channels of C3H36+ were identified definitely, i.e., C3H3+6 -> H+ + CH+2 + C2H+3 and C3H3+6 -> H+ + CH+3 + C2H+2. It is found that sequential fragmentation processes are dominant for the channels considered. For each channel, two distinct sequential mechanisms are distinguished, depending on whether the CH or CC bond breaks first. The observation is further supported by the characteristic kinetic energy release (KER) distributions associated with different mechanisms. Additionally, the reason for the prevalence of sequential fragmentation processes and their varying degrees of importance for the two channels are briefly discussed.