Strong isotope effects on the charge transfer in slow collisions of He2+ with atomic hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium

Probabilities and cross sections for charge transfer by He2+ impact on atomic hydrogen (H), deuterium (D), and tritium (T) at low collision energies are calculated. The results are obtained using an ab initio theory, which solves the time-dependent Schr?dinger equation. For the H target, excellent agreement is achieved between the present and previous results. Differences by orders of magnitude are observed between the cross sections for H, D, and T. A method is introduced to separate the contributions of charge-transfer mechanisms due to radial and rotational coupling. The large differences observed for H, D, and T are attributed to isotope effects in the rotational coupling mechanism.