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Resonant and nonresonant transfer and excitation in Si sup 11+ + He collisions

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:5151427
For many years now, dielectronic recombination (DR) has been discussed as a possible energy loss mechanism in high temperature plasmas (e.g. stars). The process is basically the inverse Auger process and involves the capture of a free electron by an ion and the simultaneous excitation of an inner shell electron of the ion producing a doubly excited state. The DR process also includes the radiative deexcitation of the ion and hence represents an energy loss from the plasma since the plasma is essentially transparent to the photons. If, instead of a free electron, an electron that is weakly bound to an atom is captured and an inner shell electron of the ion is excited, the same excited states are produced as in DR. Because the bound electrons have a momentum distribution (Compton profile), individual doubly excited states cannot, in general, be observed in this case. This new process has been called Resonant Transfer and Excitation (RTE). There is also a competing mechanism for RTE in which excitation occurs via the interaction between a projectile ion electron and a target nucleus and the capture occurs because of the interaction of the projectile nucleus and a target electron. This competing mechanism has been termed Nonresonant Transfer and Excitation (NTE) Measurements have been performed to measure RTE and NTE cross sections. A discussion of the theory, methods, and results is included.
Research Organization:
North Carolina Univ., Chapel Hill, NC (USA)
OSTI ID:
5151427
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English