The three-body fragmentation dynamics of cyclopropane $\left({\text{C}}_3{\text{H}}_6\right)$ induced by ${\text{Ni}}^{19+}$ 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 ${\text{C}}_3{\text{H}}_6^{3+}$ were identified definitely, i.e., ${\text{C}}_3{\text{H}}_6^{3+}\to {\text{H}}^{+}+\text{C}{\text{H}}_2^{+}+{\text{C}}_2{\text{H}}_3^{+}$ and ${\text{C}}_3{\text{H}}_6^{3+}\to {\text{H}}^{+}+\text{C}{\text{H}}_3^{+}+{\text{C}}_2{\text{H}}_2^{+}$. 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.

• Received 17 October 2023
• Accepted 25 January 2024

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.022817