An ion beam etching study designed to characterize the kinetic and transport processes important in the ion-assisted etching of silicon in molecular chlorine was performed. Monoenergetic argon ion beams were directed normal to a silicon wafer that was simultaneously exposed to a background of molecular chlorine, thereby simulating a low temperature rf plasma etching process. The ion-induced etching yield scaled with the square root of the ion energy for a surface saturated with adsorbed chlorine. Moreover, the yield was found to depend strongly on the ion to neutral flux ratio which was varied over two orders of magnitude. A kinetic model in which the dissociative sticking probability and the yield scale linearly with surface coverage was developed and was found to be consistent with the yield data in the ion energy range of 90-300 eV. Its applicability to etching topography was tested with additional experiments where patterned silicon wafers (with oxide masks and with a range of features and linewidths) were etched at saturation in the apparatus. Minimal lag effects and some microtrenching and sidewall sloping were encountered. The etching selectivity of silicon over oxide at 100 eV was greater than 30. Computer simulations of the etching process and profile development were performed using the kinetic model and a line-of-sight re-emission model for the chlorine transport. Knudsen diffusion was found to be important in the transport of neutrals to the base of the feature, with the aspect ratio dependence of the etch rate becoming significant only at high values of the ion to neutral flux ratio. The agreement between simulation and experiment was good, with the initial sticking probability on a clean surface and the average product stoichiometry as parameters comparing favorably to published results. However, the observed microtrenching and sidewall sloping were not predicted by these simulations.