Spurious ionic charge states in a tandem accelerator

Abstract

Spurious projectiles appearing in a tandem accelerator when tuning highly ionized 35 Cl were quantitatively analyzed in an attempt to understand their origin. Most of these ions can be explained in terms of multiple electron-capture and electron-loss reactions of the accelerating particle in the high-energy section of the accelerator. The fair agreement between the experimental yields of different spurious beams and the predictions of a theoretical model lends support to the hypothesis that such atomic collisions take place with molecules from the residual gas in the accelerator.