ABSTRACT The radiative cooling rates of C$_N^+$ clusters (N = 9, 11, 12, 17–27) have been measured in the ultrahigh vacuum an electrostatic storage ring to values on order 104 s?1. were as a competing channel unimolecular decay, and rate constants pertain excitation energies where these two channels compete. Such high can only be explained photon emission from thermally excited electronic state...