Evidence of electron saddle swap oscillations in angular differential ion-atom charge exchange cross sections

S. OTRANTO; I BLANK; R. E. OLSON; R. HOEKSTRA

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS B-ATOMIC MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

IOP PUBLISHING LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2012 vol. 45 p. 1752011 - 1752016

0953-4075

State selective charge exchange processes in 1–10 keV/amu Ne8+ +Na(3s) collisions were measured by means of the magneto-optical trap recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy technique and compared to classical trajectory Monte Carlo calculations. We find that for electron capture to n-levels >= 10, the transverse momentum distributions exhibit an oscillatory structure which is very sensitive to the impact energy. Our theoretical analysis suggests that this feature is a direct consequence of the number of swaps the electron undergoes across the potential energy saddle during the charge exchange process.