Target dependence of excitation resulting from electron capture in collisions of 200 keV Ar6+ions with noble gases

Abstract

An experimental investigation has been made of the target dependence of projectile-ion excitation resulting from electron capture in collisions of 200 keV Ar6+ ions with He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe target atoms. The studies show strongly rising total capture excitation cross sections and shifts in the post-collision projectile excited-state distributions to higher n levels, with increase in target Z. In collisions of multi-charged ions with atoms at low and intermediate velocities (U 6 1 au), the dominant inelastic processes usually involve moderately exothermic electron capture into excited states of the resulting projectile. Recent investigations have been concerned with studies of both the radiative and non-radiative modes of decay of these states (Winter eta1 1977a, b, c, 1978, Bloemen et a1 1978, El-Sherbini el a1 1978). Most of the attention has been directed towards energy and charge-state dependences of capture excitation. However, additional studies are also being made in our laboratory, on the influence of the target-electron binding energy of these processes. In this letter, we report some results of a recent study of capture excitation processes of the form: Ar6'+X+ (Ar5+)*+X++Ar5++ X++hv