Interference Effects in Quasimolecular Radiation and a Clock for Heavy Ion Nuclear Reactions

Abstract

Quasimolecular radiation has been extensively studied both experimentally and theoretically during the last decade. The use of H-like ions at low velocities brings a new dimension to the study of quasimolecular K x-rays. The most important consequence is the observation of interference structures in the quasimolecular K xray spectra which result from the coherent sum of x-ray emission in the incoming and outgoing half of the trajectory. Using very simple assumptions it is possible to obtain, directly from the data, the quasimolecular orbital transition energy as a function of internuclear distance, thus opening the way for spectroscopic studies of quasimolecular orbitals in general. As an extension of this work we propose to use these interference structures as a clock to measure nuclear sticking times in heavy ion nuclear reactions. From calculations we expect the method to be sensitive to sticking times as short as 10^-20s for collisions of Sn+Sn.