Dielectronic recombination of light Be-like and B-like ions

Abstract

Dielectronic recombination cross sections from the ground and metastable states of the Be-like ions C2+, O4+ and F5+, and the B-like ions O3+ and F4+, have been calculated and compared with experimental results obtained by a merged-beams technique. The comparison of theory and experiment is complicated by the presence of weak electric fields in the interaction region. However, the authors qualitatively explain the main features of their experimental results. In particular, for Be-like ions they find evidence of a large contribution from the initial 2s2p 3P metastable state recombining into an Auger metastable final state.