Dipole capture of a slow electron by a water cluster

It is shown that the anomalously large cross section for attachment of a slow electron to a water cluster (H₂O) _n≥50 that is observed in molecular-beam experiments may be explained by the capture of the electron by a long-range field of the permanent electric dipole moment of the cluster. The cross section values are used to estimate the dipole moment of the cluster as a function of its diameter n. The values obtained significantly exceed the random dipole moments in the case of the proton-disordered cluster structure and indicate the ferroelectric ordering of the orientations of dipole moments of the molecules included in the cluster.