Electron-ion Recombination Processes Research Articles

The formation of O and H radicals in a pulsed discharge in atmospheric pressure helium with water vapour admixtures

The spatio-temporal distribution of O and H radicals in a 90 ns pulsed discharge, generated in a pin–pin geometry with a 2.2 mm gap, in He + H2O (0.1% and 0.25%), is studied both experimentally and by 1D fluid modelling. The density of O and H radicals as well as the effective lifetimes of their excited states are measured using picosecond resolution two-photon absorption laser induced fluorescence. Good agreement between experiments and modelling is obtained for the species densities. The density of O and H is found to be homogenous along the discharge axis. Even though the high voltage pulse is 90 ns long, the density of O peaks only about 1 μs after the end of the current pulse, reaching 2 × 1016 cm−3 at 0.1% H2O. It then remains nearly constant over 10 μs before decaying. Modelling indicates that the electron temperature (Te) in the centre of the vessel geometry ranges from 6 to 4 eV during the peak of discharge current, and after 90 ns, drops below 0.5 eV in about 50 ns. Consequently, during the discharge (<100 ns), O is predominantly produced by direct dissociation of O2 by electron impact, and in the early afterglow (from 100 ns to 1 μs) O is produced by dissociative recombination of O2 +. The main loss mechanism of O is initially electron impact ionisation and once T e has dropped, it becomes mainly Penning ionisation with He2* and He* as well as three-body recombination with O+ and He. On time scales of 100–200 μs, O is mainly lost by radial diffusion. The production of H shows a similar behaviour, reaching 0.45 × 1016 cm−3 at 1 μs, due to direct dissociation of H2O by electron impact (<100 ns) followed by electron–ion recombination processes (from 200 ns to 1.5 us). H is dominantly lost through Penning ionisation with He* and He2* and by electron impact ionisation, and by charge exchange with O+. Increasing concentrations of water vapour, from 0.1% to 0.25%, have little effect on the nature of the processes of H formation but trigger a stronger initial production of O, which is not currently reproduced satisfactorily by the modelling. What emerges from this study is that the built up of O and H densities in pulsed discharges continues after electron-impact dissociation processes with additional afterglow processes, not least through the dissociative recombination of O2 + and H2 +.

Theoretical Investigation of Electron–Ion Recombination Process of Mg-like Gold

The L-shell dielectronic and trielectronic recombinations of highly charged Mg-like gold ions (Au67+) in the ground state 2s22p63s2 1S0 have been studied systematically. The recombination cross-sections and rate coefficients are carefully calculated for ∆n = 1 (2s/2p → 3l) transitions using a flexible atomic code based on the relativistic configuration interaction method and considering the Breit and QED corrections. Detailed resonance energies and resonance strengths are presented for the stronger resonances of the LMn (n = 3–12) series. It is found that the contributions of the trielectronic recombination to the total cross-section is about 13.75%, which cannot be neglected. For convenience of application, the plasma rate coefficients are also calculated and fitted to a semiempirical formula, and in the calculations, the contributions from the higher excited resonance groups n ≥ 13 are evaluated by an extrapolation method, which is about 2.93% of the total rate coefficient.

Total and state-specific electron-ion recombination rates and photoionization of Ca XV for high temperature plasma

The inverse processes of photoionization and electron-ion recombination of (Ca XV + hν↔ Ca XVI + e), are studied using the unified method of Nahar and Pradhan for a large number of bound states, 582 in total with n≤10 and l≤9, for their characteristic features particularly in the high energy region that can impact plasmas at high temperature. The unified method which implements close-coupling (CC) approximation and the R-matrix method includes both the radiative recombination (RR) and dielectronic recombination (DR) for the total recombination and yields self-consistent sets of results for both the inverse processes. The present study, carried out in large scale computations, employs a large CC wavefunction expansion of 29 LS states belonging to n=2,3 complexes of the core ion Ca XVI, and appeared to be the first detailed study for the electron-ion recombination of the ion. The present results include (i) state-specific photoionization cross sections (σPI(nLS)) leaving the core ion in the ground state, (ii) state-specific recombination rate coefficients (αRC(nLS,T)) that include both the RR and DR, (iii) total recombination rate coefficients (αRC) with temperature that include contributions of infinite number of recombined states, and (iv) a spectrum of total electron-ion recombination cross sections and rates with respect to photoelectron energy. The study finds that the core ion excitations from the ground to high n=3 states have introduced Rydberg resonances which are stronger and Seaton resonances which are more enhanced in the high energy region of σPI compared to those introduced by excitations to the n=2 states. Such features have contributed to the shape of the temperature dependent state-specific αRC(nLS,T), and have resulted in three DR bumps/ shoulders in the high temperature region of the total αRC(T) where the third DR bump at temperature of ∼ 4 MK has raised αRC(T) at high T above all previous rates. The results are expected to be accurate within 10%–15% and provide more complete and precise spectral modelings for the high temperature plasmas where the highly charged Ca XV is more abundant.

Isotope Effect for Plasma Detachment in Helium and Hydrogen/Deuterium Mixture Plasmas

To investigate the isotope effect on the plasma detachment in helium (He) and hydrogen (H)/deuterium (D) mixture plasmas, we performed H2, D2 or He gas puffing into He plasma in the linear plasma device NAGDIS-II. Axial distributions of electron density (ne) and electron temperature (Te) were obtained using a movable Langmuir probe. Additionally, optical emission spectroscopy (OES) was applied to measure axial distributions of Balmer lines and He I lines. When the neutral gas pressure was high (ΔPn = 7 ∼10 mTorr), ne distribution in He-D2 mixture plasma was similar to that in pure He plasma, showing a sharp decrease at the downstream region where Te < 1 eV. In contrast, in He-H2 mixture plasma, a decrease in ne was confirmed from upstream region where Te > 1 eV. The upstream Hα/Hγ in He-H2 plasma was significantly larger than the Dα/Dγ in He-D2 plasma at the same Te. This result indicated that molecular activated recombination (MAR) processes significantly occurred in He-H2 plasma, while electron-ion recombination (EIR) processes were dominant in He-D2 and pure He plasmas.

Low pressure DBD in He-Ne mixture. Spectroscopy of the Afterglow

The paper considers the possibility of using a low-pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) as a plasma source for the active medium of a He-Ne-laser. The results of a spectroscopic study of the decay stage of a DBD plasma of a cylindrical configuration with a pronounced inverse population of the upper level of the 2p55s configuration, which makes the line of 632.8 nm one of the brightest in the visible region of the spectrum, are presented. Based on the analysis of data on the populations of the excited levels of the neon atom and the metastable levels of helium 21S0 and 23S1, it is shown that in the early stage of the DBD afterglow at helium pressures of a fraction of a Torr, the distribution of populations over the 2p55s and 2p54d levels of the neon atom, which is characteristic of the excitation transfer mechanism, is realized. In the late afterglow with the departure of helium atoms He21S0, emission in the visible region of the spectrum is formed mainly by transitions from levels of the 2p53p, configuration, the population of which is associated with He(23S1) atoms. At this stage, the population of the 2p55s and 2p54d states by electron-ion recombination processes is ineffective and does not lead to the formation of population inversion. As an optimal solution in terms of the 632.8 nm line brightness in the afterglow, it is proposed to use a discharge with electrodes along the outer surface of a cylindrical discharge tube, initiated at frequencies that exclude the recombination stage of the afterglow. Keywords: elementary processes, barrier discharge, inverse population, afterglow, helium-neon plasma, excitation transfer

Диэлектрический барьерный разряд в смеси He-Ne низкого давления. Спектроскопия послесвечения

The paper considers the possibility of using a low-pressure dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) as a plasma source for the active medium of a He-Ne laser. The results of a spectroscopic study of the decay stage of a DBD plasma of a cylindrical configuration with a pronounced inverse population of the upper level of the 2p55s configuration, which makes the line of 632.8 nm one of the brightest in the visible region of the spectrum, are presented. It is shown that in the early stage of the DBD afterglow, the distribution of the populations over the 2p55s and 2p54d levels of the neon atom is due to the excitation transfer mechanism Не(21S0) +Ne -- &gt; He(11S0) + Ne*. In the late afterglow with the departure of helium atoms Не(21S0), emission in the visible region of the spectrum is formed mainly by transitions from levels of the 2p53p configuration, the population of which is associated with Не(23S1) atoms. At this stage, the population of the 2p55s and 2p54d states by electron-ion recombination processes is ineffective and does not lead to the formation of population inversion. As an optimal solution in terms of the 632.8 nm line brightness in the afterglow, it is proposed to use a discharge with electrodes along the outer surface of a cylindrical discharge tube, initiated at frequencies that exclude the recombination stage of the afterglow.

OuroborosBEM: a fast multi-GPU microscopic Monte Carlo simulation for gaseous detectors and charged particle dynamics

The design of gaseous detectors for accelerator, particle and nuclear physics requires simulations relying on multi-physics aspects. In fact, these simulations deal with the dynamics of a large number of charged particles interacting in a gaseous medium immersed in the electric field generated by a more or less complex assembly of electrodes and dielectric materials. We report here on a homemade software, called ouroborosbem, able to tackle the different features involved in such simulations. After solving the electrostatic problem for which a solver based on the boundary element method (BEM) has been implemented, particles are tracked and will microscopically interact with the gas medium. Dynamical effects have been included such as the electron-ion recombination process, the charging-up of the dielectric materials and other space charge effects that might alter the detector performances. These were made possible thanks to the nVidia CUDA language specifically optimised to run on Graphical Processor Units (GPUs) to minimize the computing times. Comparisons of the results obtained for parallel plate avalanche counters and GEM detectors to literature data on swarm parameters fully validate the performances of ouroborosbem. Moreover, we were able to precisely reproduce the measured gains of single and double GEM detectors as a function of the applied voltage.

Dielectronic recombination strengths and plasma rate coefficients of multiply charged ions

Context. Dielectronic recombination (DR) has been known as the dominant electron-ion recombination process in different astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, and that it determines the level population and ionization balance over a range of temperatures. Apart from a fundamental interest into the details of this process, DR plasma rate coefficients are frequently applied to estimate plasma densities and temperatures, but have been found to be notoriously difficult to calculate as they require good knowledge of the ionic resonances, which are embedded into the continuum of the next higher charges states. Aims. In this paper we explain and demonstrate how DR resonance strengths and plasma rate coefficients can be readily computed within the framework of the Jena Atomic Calculator (JAC). In contrast to other available codes, the JAC toolbox supports a much simpler handling and control of different approximations, shell structures and temperature regions, for which doubly excited resonances need to be taken into account. Methods. A multi-configuration Dirac–Hartree–Fock expansion of all atomic states is generated and applied in order to compute the transition rates (radiative and nonradiative) that contribute to the DR process. For the plasma rate coefficients, moreover, a cascade model has been developed that automatically determines and incorporates all doubly excited configurations of interest for the given plasma temperatures. Results. To demonstrate the quite flexible use of JAC, we discuss and compare the DR of initially fluorine-like Ni19+ ions with previous measurements and computations. Since it is based on Dirac’s equation, the JAC toolbox is suitable for most ions across the periodic table.

Photoionization and Electron-Ion Recombination of n = 1 to Very High n-Values of Hydrogenic Ions

Single electron hydrogen or hydrogenic ions have analytical forms to evaluate the atomic parameters for the inverse processes of photoionization and electron-ion recombination (H I + hν↔ H II + e) where H is hydrogen. Studies of these processes have continued until the present day (i) as the computations are restricted to lower principle quantum number n and (ii) to improve the accuracy. The analytical expressions have many terms and there are numerical instabilities arising from cancellations of terms. Strategies for fast convergence of contributions were developed but precise computations are still limited to lower n. This report gives a brief review of the earlier precise methodologies for hydrogen, and presents numerical tables of photoionization cross sections (σPI), and electron-ion recombination rate coefficients (αRC) obtained from recombination cross sections (σRC) for all n values going to a very high value of 800. σPI was obtained using the precise formalism of Burgess and Seaton, and Burgess. αRC was obtained through a finite integration that converge recombination exactly as implemented in the unified method of recombination of Nahar and Pradhan. Since the total electron-ion recombination includes all levels for n = 1–∞, the total asymptotic contribution of n = 801–∞, called the top-up, is obtained through a n−3 formula. A FORTRAN program “hpxrrc.f” is provided to compute photoionization cross sections, recombination cross sections and rate coefficients for any nl. The results on hydrogen atom can be used to obtain those for any hydrogenic ion of charge z through z-scaling relations provided in the theory section. The present results are of high precision and complete for astrophysical modelings.

Спектроскопия барьерного разряда низкого давления. Послесвечение с ионами Ne-=SUP=-2+-=/SUP=-, Ne-=SUP=-+-=/SUP=- и Ne-=SUP=-2+-=/SUP=-

We present the results of modeling the radiation of a decaying plasma, formed by the processes of electron-ion recombination with the participation of three neon ions: the molecular ion Ne2+ and atomic ions Ne+ and Ne2+. Such a combination of ions, simultaneously participating in the formation of the plasma spectrum, was first discovered in the afterglow of a pulsed barrier discharge of a cylindrical geometry at neon pressures less than 1 Torr and an electron density[e] ≤ 4 × 1010 cm-3. The main attention is paid to the comparative analysis of the mechanisms of impact-radiation recombination of Ne+ and Ne2+ ions based on the numerical solution of the system of differential equations for the densities of ions and long-lived excited atoms in the afterglow, taking into account the main elementary processes in decaying plasma with pulsed "heating" of electrons. The regularities of electron temperature relaxation from discharge values of several electron volts to 300 K in the late afterglow are considered in particular details. Comparison of the model solutions with the spectral intensities measured by the multichannel photon counting method shows that, given their good agreement in the case of singly charged ions, an adequate description of the evolution of ionic lines requires expanding the available information on the recombination of Ne2+ ions.

Complex scaling in relativistic calculations of cross sections for electron-ion recombination processes

SynopsisWe present an approach to calculate cross sections for electron-ion recombination processes. It is based on the combination of relativistic many-body perturbation theory and complex scaling method. A preliminary comparison between measured and calculated spectra for the electron-ion recombination rate coefficients for Be-like Ca will be given.

Theoretical investigation of electron-ion recombination process of Fe14+ ion

SynopsisThe Δn=1 dielectronic, trielectronic, and quadruelectronic recombinations of Fe14+ ion are systematically studied using the flexible atomic code based on the relativistic configuration interaction method. The theoretical rate coefficients are identified and compared with the experimental measurements at heavy-ion storage ring (TSR), good agreement is obtained.

Application of Ion Sensitive Probe to High Density Plasmas in Magnum-PSI

Feasibility of an ion sensitive probe was evaluated in high electron density (> 5 × 1019 m−3) helium plasmas produced in the Magnum-PSI device. The ion sensitive probe showed that the ion temperature was ∼ 1 eV and almost equal to the electron temperature. Increasing the neutral pressure to efficiently lead to the electron-ion recombination processes, the electron currents were collected at the ion collector. A secondary electron emission in the guard electrode might have an effect on the ion current

Stationary afterglow apparatus with CRDS for study of processes in plasmas from 300 K down to 30 K.

A cryogenic stationary afterglow apparatus equipped with a near-infrared cavity-ring-down-spectrometer (Cryo-SA-CRDS) for studies of electron-ion recombination processes in the plasma at temperatures 30-300 K has been designed, constructed, tested, and put into operation. The plasma is generated in a sapphire discharge tube that is contained in a microwave cavity. The cavity and the tube are attached to the second stage of the cold head of the cryocooler system, and they are inserted to an UHV chamber with mirrors for CRDS and vacuum windows on both ends of the tube. The temperature of the discharge tube can be made as low as 25 K. In initial test measurements, the discharge was ignited in He/Ar/H2 or He/H2 gas mixtures and the density of H3+ ions and their kinetic and rotational temperatures were measured during the discharge and afterglow. From the measured decrease in the ion density, during the afterglow, effective recombination rate coefficients were determined. Plasma relaxation was studied in He/Ar gas mixtures by monitoring the presence of highly excited argon atoms. The spectroscopic measurements demonstrated that the kinetic temperature of the ions is equal to the gas temperature and that it can be varied from 300 K down to 30 K.

Simulation of argon response and light detection in the DarkSide-50 dual phase TPC

A Geant4-based Monte Carlo package named G4DS has been developed to simulate the response of DarkSide-50, an experiment operating since 2013 at LNGS, designed to detect WIMP interactions in liquid argon. In the process of WIMP searches, DarkSide-50 has achieved two fundamental milestones: the rejection of electron recoil background with a power of ∼107, using the pulse shape discrimination technique, and the measurement of the residual 39Ar contamination in underground argon, ∼3 orders of magnitude lower with respect to atmospheric argon. These results rely on the accurate simulation of the detector response to the liquid argon scintillation, its ionization, and electron-ion recombination processes. This work provides a complete overview of the DarkSide Monte Carlo and of its performance, with a particular focus on PARIS, the custom-made liquid argon response model.

Influence of expanding and contracting magnetic field configurations on detached plasma formation in a linear plasma device

We investigated the effects of magnetic field structure on detached plasma formation by simulating magnetically expanding and contracting plasma in a linear plasma device. The present study helps to characterize the geometries of a conventional poloidal divertor and advanced divertors, e.g., super-X divertor. The total ion particle flux measured with a large-diameter target plate dramatically changed under the detached plasma condition compared to that in attached plasma. Under the detached plasma condition, the magnetically expanding plasma clearly exhibited a significant influence on the degradation of detached plasma formation. Further, the magnetically contracting plasma slightly enhanced the electron-ion recombination (EIR) processes. By changing the magnetic field structure from contraction to expansion, the electron density (ne) decreased and the electron temperature (Te) increased upstream from the recombination front, leading to the degradation of the EIR processes. The effect of the decrease in parallel flow velocity under the magnetically contracting plasma on the plasma detachment was not observed because the driven flow due to pressure gradient compensated the effect.

Large-scale atomistic calculations of clusters in intense x-ray pulses

We present the methodology of our recently developed Monte Carlo/molecular-dynamics method for studying the fundamental ultrafast dynamics induced by high-fluence, high-intensity x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) pulses in clusters. The quantum nature of the initiating ionization process is accounted for by a Monte Carlo method to calculate probabilities of electronic transitions, including photo absorption, inner-shell relaxation, photon scattering, electron collision and recombination dynamics, and thus track the transient electronic configurations (EC) explicitly. The freed electrons, atoms and ions are followed by classical particle trajectories using a molecular dynamics algorithm. Our calculations reveal the role of electron–ion recombination processes that lead to the development of nonuniform spatial charge density profiles in x-ray excited clusters over femtosecond timescales at XFEL intensities exceeding 1020 W cm−2. The Ar cluster fluorescence spectrum is found to be very different from the Ar atom spectrum, in which recombination processes enable additional pathways to reach the required EC for fluorescence transitions. In the high-intensity limit, recombination dynamics can play an important role in the calculated scattering response even for a 2 fs pulse. We demonstrate that our numerical codes and algorithms can make efficient use of the computational power of massively parallel supercomputers to investigate the intense-field dynamics in systems with increasing complexity and size at the ultrafast timescale and in nonlinear x-ray interaction regimes. In particular, picosecond trajectories of XFEL clusters with attosecond time resolution containing millions of particles can be efficiently computed on upwards of 262 144 processes.

Electron recombination in low-energy nuclear recoils tracks in liquid argon

This paper presents an analysis of electron-ion recombination processes in ionization tracks of recoiled atoms in liquid argon (LAr) detectors. The analysis is based on the results of computer simulations which use realistic models of electron transport and reactions. The calculations reproduce the recent experimental results of the ionization yield from 6.7 keV nuclear recoils in LAr. The statistical distribution of the number of electrons that escape recombination is found to deviate from the binomial distribution, and estimates of recombination fluctuations for nuclear recoils tracks are obtained. A study of the recombination kinetics shows that a significant part of electrons undergo very fast static recombination, an effect that may be responsible for the weak drift-field dependence of the ionization yield from nuclear recoils in some noble liquids. The obtained results can be useful in the search for hypothetical dark matter particles and in other studies that involve detection of recoiled nuclei.

Photoionization and electron-ion recombination of Ti I

Study of the inverse processes of photoionization and electron-ion recombination of (Ti I + hν⇋ Ti II + e) using the unified method is reported. The method, based on close coupling (CC) approximation and R-matrix method, subsumes both the radiative recombination (RR) and dielectronic recombination (DR) in a unified manner and provides state-specific and total electron-ion recombination rate coefficients which are self-consistent with the state-specific photoionization cross sections. The present results include state-specific electron-ion recombination rates (αRC(i))and partial photoionization cross sections (σPI(i)) leaving the ion in the ground state of 813 bound states with n ≤ 10 and l ≤ 9 of Ti I. Various features of state-specific and total electron-ion recombination with temperature, and the corresponding photoionization cross sections with energies are discussed with illustrations. Due to closely lying excited states near the ground state of the core, photoionization cross sections show presence of narrow Rydberg resonances in low energy region near the ionization threshold. Many excited states also show broad and enhanced Seaton resonances due to PEC (photo-excitation-of-core) which contribute to the high temperature recombination. The total recombination rate coefficient is found to show a low hump around temperature 280 K and a high dielectronic recombination peak at temperature 25,000 K. Total spectrum of recombination cross sections and rates with photoelectron energy are also presented for experimental observation. Calculations were carried out using a CC wave function expansion of 36 states of the core ion Ti II. The large set of data for recombination rates and partial photoionization cross sections with resonances should provide a complete and accurate modelings of plasmas.

Real-time fragmentation dynamics of clusters ionized by intense extreme-ultraviolet pulses

We investigate the fragmentation dynamics of atomic clusters ionized by intense extreme-ultraviolet pulses from a high-order harmonic generation source. It is demonstrated that the transient modification of the trimer fragment yield induced by a weak near-infrared (NIR) probe pulse provides valuable information on the cluster disintegration process. For medium-sized Ar clusters and delays of around 5 ps, we observe a transition from a collective response, where efficient absorption of the NIR laser energy takes place, to a state where the interaction of the probe laser pulse with individual fragments dominates. The cluster disintegration is faster for smaller clusters, in agreement with a simple physical picture taking into account the measured expansion speeds of excited and ionic fragments. For Xe clusters, we find a significantly increased fragmentation time of about 40 ps, attributed to the larger atomic mass and to more efficient electron–ion recombination processes.