Electron loss from hydrogenlike, heliumlike, and lithiumlike uranium ions in collisions with atoms at low relativistic impact energies

Abstract

We consider the (single) electron loss from hydrogenlike, heliumlike, and lithiumlike uranium ions in collisions with neutral atoms in the domain of the low-relativistic impact energies where the collision velocity is already a substantial fraction of the speed of light but still does not exceed the typical electron velocities in the K shell of the uranium ions. In collisions with many-electron atoms at these impact energies the presence of the atomic electrons is of minor importance for the electron loss process which occurs predominantly via the interaction with the unscreened atomic nucleus. This interaction can be effectively very strong if the atoms have large atomic numbers which leads to a tremendous failure of the first Born approximation. We show that experimental data for the loss cross sections can be well described using an eikonal amplitude proposed recently [Phys. Rev. A 75, 062716 (2007)].