Electronic correlation effects on the neutralization of Ga + scattered by a gold surface

M. TACCA; F. BONETTO; E. C. GOLDBERG

PHYSICAL REVIEW B

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2017 vol. 96 p. 7542411 - 7542413

1098-0121

The monotonous increasing with temperature behavior of the neutralization of Ga+ scattered by a gold surfaceplus the non-magnetic character of the ion, have induced to disregard any important electronic correlationeffects. In this work we show that, contrary to this assumption, the electron-electron interaction in the Ga site iscrucial for describing the experimental results. We extend the formalism previously used in the Sr+/Au systemto include more than one valence orbital in the projectile, which is the case of Ga+, where the neutralizationoccurs to a p-type shell. In drawing up this study we consider the six possible orbital-spin neutral configurationsin a correlated way within the Anderson model. The comparison with the results obtained from a non-interactingelectron model allows inferring how important the many body effects in the charge exchange between Ga+ andthe gold surface are. We also found that the proximity of the projectile one-electron energy levels to the substrateFermi level determines the influence of electronic correlation effects on the neutral fraction and its temperatureand velocity dependences.