Total and state-to-state electron capture and excitation cross-sections for Li+, Be and colliding with at low-to-intermediate energies

Abstract

The electron capture process plays an important role as a diagnostic tool for measuring the temperature, plasma rotation, and impurity densities of plasma in tokamaks. In this work we report the electron capture and excitation cross-sections for Li+, Be and colliding with atomic hydrogen in the collision energy range 0.25–25 keV/amu. For this, we solve numerically the time dependent Schrödinger equation by using a finite difference approach. We model the ion projectile interaction with the target using a pseudopotential obtained within a Hartree–Fock method. We use classical trajectories, obtained self-consistently, for the projectile at collision energies lower than 2 keV/amu and a straight line trajectory at high collision energies. We report new results for the total, and 4 state projectile electron capture cross-section, as well as the n = 2-state target excitation cross-section. We find a good agreement between our cross-section results when compared with available theoretical and experimental data found in the literature. Finally, we find that the electron capture probability, as a function of the impact parameter, shows Stückelberg oscillations at low collision energies for the n = 2 of Be+ and n = 3 of in the radial range (large impact parameters). Our results assess the validity of the adiabatic basis set at low collision energies and confirm the use of a finite difference method as an accurate approach to study a time-dependent process in charge exchange collisions. A discussion of our results is provided.