Energy partitioning in the metastable fragmentation [C3H7]+ → [C3H5]+ + H2

The dish-topped metastable peak for the fragmentation C₃H₇]⁺ → allyl]⁺ + H₂ is generated by the threshold fragmentation. The fraction of the reverse activation energy which is partitioned as translational energy of the products is 0.9 ± 0.1. It is proposed that a similar partitioning coefficient applies to the excess internal energy above threshold.