Fig. 3: Normalized angular momentum distributions.

These P(J) distributions (Σ_j P(j) = 1) are computed for the a b ¹Σ⁺ and b a ¹Δ states of OD⁺ populated during D₂O²⁺ fragmentation (see text). Calculated angular momentum—KER\({}_{{{{{{{{{\rm{OD}}}}}}}}}_{{{{{{{{\rm{II}}}}}}}}}}\) correlation maps for the c b ¹Σ⁺ and d a ¹Δ states. The lines in panels c and d represent the modification of the appearance window in Fig. 1b for nonzero rotational angular momentum by the addition of a centrifugal potential to both the singlet and triplet potential curves (specifically, A ³Π - black, b ¹Σ⁺ - red, and a ¹Δ - blue). In the absence of tunneling no dissociating trajectories can appear outside these lines. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.