Renner-Teller effects in HCO$^{+}$ dissociative recombination*

A theoretical description of the dissociative recombination process for the HCO$^{+}$ ion suggests that the Renner-Teller coupling between electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom plays a vital role. This finding is consistent with a recent study of this process for another closed-shell molecule, the H$_{3}^{+}$ ion, where Jahn-Teller coupling was shown to generate a relatively high rate. The theoretical cross section obtained here for the dissociative recombination of HCO$^{+}$ exhibits encouraging agreement with a merged-beam experiment.