Collisions between metal clusters and multiply charged ions

Abstract

Metal clusters are electrically charged by collisions with charged ions through electron transfer reactions from the clusters to the ions. The reaction processes are studied by the time-dependent mean field theory with the usual Local Density Approximation for the exchange-correlation potential. Preliminary results show the interesting feature that collisions with large impact parameters make ionized clusters with relatively low excitation, which gives important new information on the stability of metal clusters against fission.