Ionization channel in non-perturbative ion-atom collisions dominated by charge exchange

Abstract

The development of the described method has been motivated by studies of the proton-atomic oxygen collision system, where the accidental closeness of energy levels makes the charge exchange quasi-resonant. In slow collisions the ionization channel must compete with the resonant exchange channel. The present theoretical approach is to add target continuum states, found by solving numerically the self-consistent field Schrödinger equation, to the set of basis states on target and projectile, as used in close coupling treatment of excitation and exchange. We have shown that the chosen theoretical approach is feasible and report here first model studies using the new computer code. It is found that the large population of the ionization channel at the lowest collision velocities found in a previous study is not seen in the present approach.

Transformation of bound states of relativistic hydrogenlike atoms into a two-component form

“…To surmount this problem we follow Refs. [24,25] by replacing the continuum functions ψ ǫ p (r) in Eq. ( 8) by the so-called discretized functions Ψ ǫ pi (r)…”

“…As shown in Refs. [24][25][26], for ∆p → 0 the summation over p i in Eq. ( 10) reduces to the integration over dp, as given in Eq.…”