Atomic Collisions Research Articles

The Electric Dipole Transitions of Hydrogen Like Nobelium

It is an occasion to understand and test the methods for determination of atomic structure on hydrogen like ions especially with high atomic number, Z. Many studies such as interpretation of astrophysical spectra and atomic collision studies, the development of X-ray lasers etc. demand exact transition parameters data. This need is a reason of the present paper to support more precise atomic data of electric dipole transitions parameters for hydrogen like nobelium (No 101+ , Z=102). The wavelengths, logarithmic weighted oscillator strengths and transition probabilities of No 101+ have been reproduced with relativistic multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock (MCHF) and fully relativistic multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock (MCDF) methods. The transitions between nl ( n =1-9 and l =0-4) levels have been investigated in this work. The results of MCHF and MCDF methods have been compared with a unique theoretical work, because there has been neither theoretical nor experimental work in available literature.

Data on inelastic processes in low-energy collisions of barium atoms and ions with hydrogen atoms and anions

ABSTRACT Inelastic rate coefficients for 686 partial processes in low-energy Ba + H, Ba+ + H−, Ba++ H and Ba2+ + H− collisions are calculated. These data are needed for the non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (non-LTE) modelling of Ba i and Ba ii spectra, especially in cool stellar atmospheres. The calculations of the rate coefficients are performed by means of the quantum model approach, based on the asymptotic semi-empirical method for the electronic structure calculations and on multichannel formulas for the non-adiabatic nuclear dynamical calculations. The inelastic rate coefficients for all transitions between the 17 lowest covalent states and one ionic molecular state in Ba + H and Ba+ + H− collisions, as well as the inelastic rate coefficients for all transitions between the 19 lowest covalent states and one ionic molecular state in Ba+ + H and Ba2+ + H− collisions are calculated. In Ba+ + H− collisions, the highest rate coefficients correspond to the mutual neutralization processes into the Ba(6s6p1P°), Ba(6s7s3S) and Ba(6s7s1S) final states, with the largest value of 5.93 × 10−8 cm3 s−1 at T = 6000 K for the process Ba+ + H− → Ba(6s7s3S) + H. The highest rate coefficient for excitation and de-excitation processes in Ba + H collisions corresponds to the Ba(6s7s1S) → Ba(6s7s3S) transition, with the value of 7.62 × 10−9 cm3 s−1 at T = 6000 K. In Ba2+ + H− collisions, the highest rate coefficients correspond to the neutralization processes into the Ba+( 7p2P°), Ba+( 4f 2F°), Ba+( 6d 2D) and Ba+( 7s 2S) final states. The highest neutralization rate has the value of 3.96 × 10−8 cm3 s−1 at T = 6000 K for the Ba2+ + H− → Ba+( 7p 2P°) + H process. The largest rate coefficient for excitation and de-excitation processes in Ba+ + H collisions corresponds to the Ba+(7s 2S) → Ba+( 6p 2P°) transition, with the value of 1.23 × 10−9 cm3 s−1 at T = 6000 K.

Revealing neutral bremsstrahlung in two-phase argon electroluminescence

Proportional electroluminescence (EL) in noble gases has long been used in two-phase detectors for dark matter search, to record ionization signals induced by particle scattering in the noble-gas liquid (S2 signals). Until recently, it was believed that proportional electroluminescence was fully due to VUV emission of noble gas excimers produced in atomic collisions with excited atoms, the latter being in turn produced by drifting electrons. In this work we consider an additional mechanism of proportional electroluminescence, namely that of bremsstrahlung of drifting electrons scattered on neutral atoms (so-called neutral bremsstrahlung); it is systemically studied here both theoretically and experimentally. In particular, the absolute EL yield has for the first time been measured in pure gaseous argon in the two-phase mode, using a dedicated two-phase detector with EL gap optically read out by cryogenic PMTs and SiPMs. We show that the neutral bremsstrahlung effect can explain two intriguing observations in EL radiation: that of the substantial contribution of the non-VUV spectral component, extending from the UV to NIR, and that of the photon emission at lower electric fields, below the Ar excitation threshold. Possible applications of neutral bremsstrahlung effect in two-phase dark matter detectors are discussed.

Eikonal-Glauber Thomas–Fermi model for atomic collisions with many-electron atoms for plasma applications

We have derived the universal eikonal-Glauber Thomas–Fermi model for atomic collision cross-sections with many-electron atoms, such as iron and tungsten atoms, including the influence of atomic screening in fusion devices and plasma technologies. The eikonal-Glauber method is employed to obtain the analytic expressions for the effective atomic charge, the scattering phase shift and the atomic cross-section in terms of the atomic form factor and the Mott–Massey screening parameter. The result shows that the effective atomic charge would be the same as the case of the net nuclear charge for the large momentum transfer domain and becomes zero without momentum transfer due to the influence of bound atomic electrons. It is shown that the eikonal scattering phase shift and the total eikonal-Glauber scattering cross-section increase with increasing charge number$Z$of the nucleus of the target atom. It is also found that the charge dependence of the total eikonal-Glauber scattering cross-section decreases with an increase of the scaled collision energy since the atomic form factor is small for large collision energies.

Light storage for one second in room-temperature alkali vapor

Light storage, the controlled and reversible mapping of photons onto long-lived states of matter, enables memory capability in optical quantum networks. Prominent storage media are warm alkali vapors due to their strong optical coupling and long-lived spin states. In a dense gas, the random atomic collisions dominate the lifetime of the spin coherence, limiting the storage time to a few milliseconds. Here we present and experimentally demonstrate a storage scheme that is insensitive to spin-exchange collisions, thus enabling long storage times at high atomic densities. This unique property is achieved by mapping the light field onto spin orientation within a decoherence-free subspace of spin states. We report on a record storage time of 1 s in room-temperature cesium vapor, a 100-fold improvement over existing storage schemes. Furthermore, our scheme lays the foundations for hour-long quantum memories using rare-gas nuclear spins.

Magnetic-field gradiometer based on ultracold collisions

We present a detailed analysis of the usefulness of ultracold atomic collisions for sensing the strength of an external magnetic field as well as its spatial gradient. The core idea of the sensor, which we recently proposed in K. Jachymski \emph{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 120}, 013401 (2018), is to probe the transmission of the atoms through a set of quasi-one-dimensional waveguides that contain an impurity. Magnetic field-dependent interactions between the incoming atoms and the impurity naturally lead to narrow resonances that can act as sensitive field probes since they strongly affect the transmission. We illustrate our findings with concrete examples of experimental relevance, demonstrating that a sensitivity of the order of 1 nT for the field strength and $100\,\mathrm{nT}/\mathrm{mm}$ for the gradient can be reached using our scheme.

Identical spin rotation effect and electron spin waves in quantum gas of atomic hydrogen

We present an experimental study of electron spin waves in atomic hydrogen gas compressed to high densities of ∼5 × 1018 cm−3 at temperatures ranging from 0.26 to 0.6 K in the strong magnetic field of 4.6 T. Hydrogen gas is in a quantum regime when the thermal de-Broglie wavelength is much larger than the s-wave scattering length. In this regime the identical particle effects play a major role in atomic collisions and lead to the identical spin rotation effect (ISR). We observed a variety of spin wave modes caused by this effect with strong dependence on the magnetic potential caused by variations of the polarizing magnetic field. We demonstrate confinement of the ISR modes in the magnetic potential and manipulate their properties by changing the spatial profile of the magnetic field. We have found that at a high enough density of H gas the magnons accumulate in their ground state in the magnetic trap and exhibit long coherence, which has a profound effect on the electron spin resonance spectra. Such macroscopic accumulation of the ground state occurs at a certain critical density of hydrogen gas, where the chemical potential of the magnons becomes equal to the energy of their ground state in the trapping potential.

Theory and application of hydrogen formation in proton-alkali atom collision

The possibility of producing more hydrogen during p-alkali atom collisions is discussed. The coupled static approximation is modified for the first time to make it applicable to the multichannel problem of the collisions of p-alkali atoms. The formation of H (1s) and excited H (in 2s- and 2p- states) in the scattering of p-Li atoms is treated to test the convergence of our method. The modified method is used to calculate the total cross-sections of seven partial waves in a range of energy between 50 and 1000 keV. Our p-Li results are compared with earlier ones.

Derivation of an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck Process for a Massive Particle in a Rarified Gas of Particles

We consider the statistical motion of a convex rigid body in a gas of N smaller (spherical) atoms close to thermodynamic equilibrium. Because the rigid body is much bigger and heavier, it undergoes a lot of collisions leading to small deflections. We prove that its velocity is described, in a suitable limit, by an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. The strategy of proof relies on Lanford's arguments [17] together with the pruning procedure from [3] to reach diffusive times, much larger than the mean free time. Furthermore, we need to introduce a modified dynamics to avoid pathological collisions of atoms with the rigid body: these collisions, due to the geometry of the rigid body, require developing a new type of trajectory analysis.

Polarization and exchange effects in elastic scattering of electron with atoms and ions**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11274219) and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry, China.

Laser-induced electron diffraction (LIED), in which elastic scattering of the returning electron with the parent ion takes place, has been used to extract atomic potential and image molecular structures with sub-Å precision and exposure time of a few femtoseconds. So far, the polarization and exchange effects have not been taken into account in the theoretical calculation of differential cross section (DCS) for the laser-induced rescattering processes. However, the validity of this theoretical treatment has never been verified. In this work, we investigate the polarization and exchange effects on electron impact elastic scattering with rare gas atoms and ions. It is found that, while the exchange effect generally plays a more important role than the polarization effect in the elastic scattering process, the exchange effect is less important on electron–ion collisions than on electron–atom collisions, especially for scattering in backward direction. In addition, our calculations show that, for electron–atom collisions at incident energies above 50 eV, both the polarization and exchange effects can be safely neglected, while for electron–ion collisions, both the polarization and exchange potentials do not make substantial contributions to the DCS at incident energies above 20 eV and scattering angles larger than 90°. Our investigation confirms the validity of the current LIED method.

On the local density dependence of electronic stopping of ions in solids

We use time-dependent density functional theory to calculate the electronic stopping Se in binary Ni-Ni atomic collisions and for a Ni projectile along channeling directions in a Ni crystal. Our results show that when Se is reported as a function of the ground state target electronic density ρ0 the stopping is not a single-valued function of the local density, as assumed in formalisms that date back to the origins of quantum mechanics, but shows loops, suggesting that it is inaccurate to model stopping as a dissipative force of the type F=β(ρ0)v, as it is customarily done in non-adiabatic molecular dynamics simulations of ion-solid interactions. We compare our results with Se in a uniform electron gas where the above definition for the force holds, and conclude on the validity of using jellium as a crude approximation for more realistic inhomogeneous electron gases.

Probing electron-atom collision dynamics in gas plasma by high-order harmonic spectroscopy.

Plasma is a complex system involving diverse collisional processes and interactions, such as electron-impact excitation, ionization, recombination, etc. One of the most important methods for studying the properties and dynamics of plasma is to analyze the radiations from plasma. Here, we demonstrate the high-order harmonic (HH) spectroscopy for probing the complex electron-atom collision (EAC) dynamics in a laser-induced gas plasma. These measurements were carried out by using an elliptically polarized pump and a time-delayed linearly polarized probe. The HH spectra from argon and krypton plasmas were recorded by scanning the time delay up to hundreds of picoseconds. We found that the delay-dependent HH yield contains three distinct regions, i.e., the first enhancement, the subsequent suppression, and the final restoration regions. A qualitative analysis shows that these features are clear signatures of the EAC processes and interactions involved in the delay-dependent HH spectroscopy.

Quantum and Semiclassical Stark Widths for Ar VII Spectral Lines

We present in this paper the results of a theoretical study of electron impact broadening for several lines of the Ar VII ion. The results have been obtained using our quantum mechanical method and the semiclassical perturbation one. Results are presented for electron density 1018 cm−3 and for electron temperatures ranging from 2 × 10 4 to 5 × 10 5 K required for plasma modeling. Our results have been compared to other semiclassical ones obtained using different sources of atomic data. A study of the strong collisions contributions to line broadening has been performed. The atomic structure and collision data used for the calculations of line broadening are also calculated by our codes and compared to available theoretical results. The agreement found between the two calculations ensures that our line broadening procedure uses adequate structure and collision data.

Charge transfer in low-energy collisions of H with He+ and H+ with He in excited states

The charge transfer process in collisions of excited (n = 2, 3) hydrogen atoms with He+ and in collisions of excited helium atoms with H+ is studied theoretically. A combination of a fully quantum-mechanical method and a semi-classical approach is employed to calculate the charge-exchange cross sections at collision energies from 0.1 eV u−1 up to 1 keV u−1. These methods are based on accurate ab initio potential energy curves and non-adiabatic couplings for the molecular ion HeH+. Charge transfer can occur either in singlet or in triplet states, and the differences between the singlet and triplet spin manifolds are discussed. The dependence of the cross section on the quantum numbers n and l of the initial state is demonstrated. The isotope effect on the charge transfer cross sections, arising at low collision energy when H is substituted by D or T, is investigated. Rate coefficients are calculated for all isotopes up to 106 K. Finally, the impact of the present calculations on models of laboratory plasmas is discussed.

Excitation and charge transfer in low-energy hydrogen atom collisions with neutral iron

Data for inelastic processes due to hydrogen atom collisions with iron are needed for accurate modelling of the iron spectrum in late-type stars. Excitation and charge transfer in low-energy Fe+H collisions is studied theoretically using a previously presented method based on an asymptotic two-electron linear combination of atomic orbitals model of ionic-covalent interactions in the neutral atom-hydrogen-atom system, together with the multi-channel Landau–Zener model. An extensive calculation including 166 covalent states and 25 ionic states is presented and rate coefficients are calculated for temperatures in the range 1000–20 000 K. The largest rates are found for charge transfer processes to and from two clusters of states around 6.3 and 6.6 eV excitation, corresponding in both cases to active 4d and 5p electrons undergoing transfer. Excitation and de-excitation processes among these two sets of states are also significant.

Low energy collisions of spin-polarized metastable argon atoms with ground state argon atoms

The collision between a spin-polarized metastable argon atom in Ar* (3p54s, 3P2, M = +2) state slightly decelerated by the Zeeman slower-laser technique and a co-propagating thermal ground state argon atom Ar (3p6, 1S0), both merged from the same supersonic beam, but coming through adjacent slots of a rotating disk, is investigated at the center of mass energies ranging from 1 to 10 meV. The duration of the laser pulse synchronised with the disk allows the tuning of the relative velocity and thus the collision energy. At these sub-thermal energies, the ‘resonant metastability transfer’ signal is too small to be evidenced. The explored energy range requires using indiscernibility amplitudes for identical isotopes to have a correct interpretation of the experimental results. Nevertheless, excitation transfers are expected to increase significantly at much lower energies as suggested by previous theoretical predictions of potentials 2g(3P2) and 2u(3P2). Limits at ultra-low collisional energies of the order of 1 mK (0.086 μeV) or less, where gigantic elastic cross sections are expected, will also be discussed. The experimental method is versatile and could be applied using different isotopes of Argon like 36Ar combined with 40Ar, as well as other rare gases among which Krypton should be of great interest thanks to the available numerous isotopes present in a natural gas mixture.

A practical theoretical formalism for atomic multielectron processes: direct multiple ionization by a single auger decay or by impact of a single electron or photon

Multiple electron processes occur widely in atoms, molecules, clusters, and condensed matters when they are interacting with energetic particles or intense laser fields. Direct multielectron processes (DMEP) are the most complicated among the general multiple electron processes and are the most difficult to describe theoretically. In this work, a unified and accurate theoretical formalism is proposed on the DMEP of atoms including the multiple auger decay and multiple ionization by an impact of a single electron or a single photon based on the atomic collision theory described by a correlated many-body Green's function. Such a practical treatment is made possible by taking consideration of the different coherence features of the atoms (matter waves) in the initial and final states. We first explain how the coherence characteristics of the ejected continuum electrons is largely destructed, by taking the electron impact direct double ionization process as an example. The direct double ionization process is completely different from the single ionization where the complete interference can be maintained. The detailed expressions are obtained for the energy correlations among the continuum electrons and energy resolved differential and integral cross sections according to the separation of knock-out (KO) and shake-off (SO) mechanisms for the electron impact direct double ionization, direct double and triple auger decay, and double and triple photoionization (TPI) processes. Extension to higher order DMEP than triple ionization is straight forward by adding contributions of the following KO and SO processes. The approach is applied to investigate the electron impact double ionization processes of C+, N+, and O+, the direct double and triple auger decay of the K-shell excited states of C+ and , and the double and TPI of lithium. Comparisons with the experimental and other theoretical investigations wherever available in the literature show that our theoretical formalism is accurate and effective in treating the atomic multielectron processes.

Improving atomic displacement and replacement calculations with physically realistic damage models

Atomic collision processes are fundamental to numerous advanced materials technologies such as electron microscopy, semiconductor processing and nuclear power generation. Extensive experimental and computer simulation studies over the past several decades provide the physical basis for understanding the atomic-scale processes occurring during primary displacement events. The current international standard for quantifying this energetic particle damage, the Norgett−Robinson−Torrens displacements per atom (NRT-dpa) model, has nowadays several well-known limitations. In particular, the number of radiation defects produced in energetic cascades in metals is only ~1/3 the NRT-dpa prediction, while the number of atoms involved in atomic mixing is about a factor of 30 larger than the dpa value. Here we propose two new complementary displacement production estimators (athermal recombination corrected dpa, arc-dpa) and atomic mixing (replacements per atom, rpa) functions that extend the NRT-dpa by providing more physically realistic descriptions of primary defect creation in materials and may become additional standard measures for radiation damage quantification.

Optical characterization of antirelaxation coatings

Antirelaxation coatings (ARC) are used in optical cells containing alkali metal vapor to reduce the depolarization of alkali atoms after collisions with the cell walls. The long-lived ground state polarization is a basis for development of atomic clocks, magnetometers, quantum memory, slow light experiments, precision measurements of fundamental symmetries etc. In this work, a simple method for measuring the number of collisions of the alkali atoms with the cell walls without atomic spin randomization (Nasyrov et al., Proc. SPIE (2015)) was applied to characterize the AR properties of two PDMS coatings prepared from different solutions in ether (PDMS 2% and PDMS 5%). We observed influence of the light-induced atomic desorption (LIAD) on the AR properties of coatings.

Spectroscopy Study of Hydrogen Atoms Reflected From Tungsten Surface in a Magnetized Plasma

Spectroscopy study of reflected hydrogen atoms from a W surface under plasma bombardment was performed by measuring the $\text{H}\alpha $ emission spectra. The contribution from the reflected hydrogen atoms was confirmed at the outermost part of the Doppler-broadened $\text{H}\alpha $ spectra by suppressing the background light from the atomic and molecular excitations in the plasma. A mechanism of the collisional excitation with an H2 molecule is proposed to explain the excitation of the reflected atoms to the $n=3$ level in the region outside of the plasma column, where the background signal from the plasma was largely reduced. The measured spectra were compared with the reconstructed spectral profiles by Monte Carlo simulations using the atomic collision amorphous target code. This paper presents a promising method to collect fundamental data related to the recycling of hydrogen atoms near the edge region of fusion devices in the energy range below a few 100 eV.