Near-site far-site charge asymmetry in diatomic Coulomb fragmentation with slow highly charged ions

The three-center Coulombic over-barrier model is developed for charge asymmetric Coulomb fragmentations of a diatomic molecule following multiple electron transfer to a slow highly charged ion. The near-site far-site asymmetry is calculated in a coplanar geometry through a ratio of phase space volumes at the nuclear configuration where the electron gets localized in the dissociating molecular ion. The model explains the experimental observation in collisions of Kr8+ + N2 that the fragment pair of N3+N+ shows considerably larger asymmetry than N2+N+ and N3+N2+.