Channel mixing effects in the dissociative recombination of H+3 with slow electrons

We discuss the low-energy dissociative recombination of H+3, which strongly influences the abundance of this ion in diffuse interstellar molecular clouds. The kinetic couplings between the ionization continuum and the dissociative ground state of H3 have been used as input to a two-dimensional wave packet calculation of dissociation dynamics. The cross section obtained for direct dissociative recombination is much smaller than the latest experimental results. However, a multichannel quantum defect treatment shows that an indirect mechanism via bound Rydberg states of H3 prevails for this process.