Feedback action of vicinage effect in cluster stopping via nonhomogeneous charge reduction

Abstract

We use a self-consistent, variational-statistical approach to analyze the vicinage effect on charge states of constituent ions in fast large clusters, passing through thin foils. The solutions of the resulting nonlinear integral equation show that the individual ion charges are reduced in comparison to isolated isotachic ions and are distributed nonhomogeneously throughout the cluster. Using a statistical description of the ion positions in conjunction with the nonhomogeneous distribution of ion charges, we evaluate the total stopping power of the cluster by means of the dielectric formalism. It is shown that interference in cluster stopping coming from the spatial correlations among the constituent ions is strongly influenced by the vicinage effect on ion charge states.