Description of the Charge–Energy Distribution of Fast Ions

Abstract

A theoretical model is proposed; it describes the evolution of the charge and energy distributions of ions passing through a target as a Markov process, in which the probability of transitions between elements of phase space is proportional to the cross sections of inelastic collisions and to the corresponding ion energy losses. The inclusion of correlations between charge-exchange processes and the target-atom ionization makes it possible to describe the influence of the energy distribution of ions not only on the process of formation of the equilibrium charge distribution, but also on the change in the ion energy mean in the case where the charge distribution is nonequilibrium.