Auger, Inner-Shell and Related Processes

Abstract

The collision system consisting of a highly charged ion and an atom represents a super-excited quasi-molecular complex. The large amount of Potential energy stored in such a system can be disseminated at low collision energies through a variety of electron rearrangement processes. Most of these processes involve correlated transitions of two or more electrons. For sufficiently high collision energies, the collision partners may come close to each other and electrons from the inner shells become involved in the collision process. Creation of inner-shell vacancies, with subsequent emission of x-rays and/or Auger electrons, is a prominent feature of such collisions. At still higher energies, non-characteristic (continuous) x-ray emission may also be observed. In addition, if the sum of projectile and target nuclear charges exceeds some critical value Z_cr, appearance of specific quantum-electrodynamical phenomena may be expected.