Simultaneous loss and excitation of projectile electrons in relativistic collisions of U90+(1s2) ions with atoms

Abstract

We study relativistic collisions between helium-like uranium ions initially in the ground state and atoms in which, in a single collision event, one of the electrons of the ion is emitted and the other is transferred into an excited state of the residual hydrogen-like ion. We consider this two-electron process at not very high impact energies, where the action of the atom on the electrons of the ion can be well approximated as occurring solely due to the interaction with the nucleus of the atom and, hence, the process can be regarded as a four-body problem. Using the independent electron model we show that a very substantial improvement in the calculated cross sections is obtained if, instead of the first-order approximation, the relativistic symmetric eikonal and continuum-distorted-wave-eikonal-initial-state models are employed to describe the single-electron probabilities for the excitation and loss, respectively.