Collisions of Atoms (Ions, Molecules) with Highly Charged Ions: Charge-Transfer Processes

Abstract

We Start the consideration of specific inelastic processes that occur in the collisions of multiply charged ions with neutral atomic particles by looking at the class of charge-transfer (or electron-capture, or charge-exchange) processes. The change of the charge state of the collision partners, the creation of excited reaction products and the extremely high cross sections bring to this class of processes a great practical importance. The fact that the projectile ion is highly charged makes possible the capture of more than one electron from the target in a Single collision. In this chapter we shall consider both Single- and many-electron-capture processes in the energy range from a few eV to several MeV/amu. Our main attention, however, will be devoted to the single-charge-transfer processes, for which the theoretical and experimental information at present is most complete. Emphasis in our considerations will be given to the basic physical mechanisms governing the charge-transfer processes and their theoretical description.