Charge transfer in collisions of H⁺, Li³⁺, Be⁴⁺ and O⁷⁺ ions with He atom based on 4-classical trajectory Monte Carlo method

Abstract

The classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) method is a common method to study the charge-transfer and impact-ionization cross sections for the collisions between ions and atoms, and the heavy particle collision in astrophysics and laboratory plasma environment. Here in this work, we use the 4-CTMC method to study a four-body collision process including two bound electrons, and the Hamiltonian equation of the four-body dynamic system is solved numerically. The single/double electron ionization and capture cross sections are calculated for collisions of high charge state ions (Li<sup>3+</sup>, Be<sup>4+</sup> and O<sup>7+</sup>) with helium atom in a wide range of projectile energy. The calculation results show that the results from the 4-CTMC method and the experimental measurements are in better agreement in a projectile energy range of 50–200 keV/amu for proton-helium collision system. In addition, for incident ions with high charge state, the results calculated by the 4-CTMC method are in better agreement with the experimental measurements or other theoretical values in a projectile energy range of 100–500 keV/amu. Though the double ionization and capture cross sections calculated by 4-CTMC or 3-CTMC method are higher than the experimental results due to ignoring the electron correlation, the results from the 4-CTMC method are in better agreement with the experimental results.