Ion-Ion Collisions

Abstract

Theoretical and experimental data on ion-ion collisions are quite limited because this problem is a relatively young field of physics stimulated by recent research on thermonuclear fusion with inertial and magnetic confinement. Only since 1977, the experimental data on charge-exchange and ionization, involving singly or doubly charged ions, obtained by the intersecting-beam technique, have become available. Such data for collisions between two multicharged ions A^z1+ and B^z2+ with z1, z2 > 2 are not available. The problems arising in the investigation of ion-ion collisions are described in reviews and monographs [7.1-4], the general features of the intersecting - beam techniques in [7.5]. A theoretical description of ionization, electron capture, excitation and other processes in heavy-ion collisions at relativistic velocities is given in [7.6].