Electron emission in energetic ion–atom collisions in the presence of coherent electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

We consider the effect of a low-frequency electromagnetic field on the spectra of electron emission in energetic nonrelativistic ion–atom collisions. The field is assumed to have linear polarization and to be weak compared to the typical atomic field. The incorporation of the projectile interaction opens a new scenario to the combined study of electromagnetic and atomic interactions. Our work suggests that the electromagnetic field can have a profound effect on two of the most important structures that appear in the electron emission spectra: the electron capture into the continuum and binary encounter (BE) peaks. We show that in the BE peak region the result for the laser-assisted scattering depends on the theory applied for the collision part, the first Born approximation or the distorted wave Born approximation.