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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 34: Poster II
A 34.16: Poster
Thursday, March 5, 2009, 16:30–19:00, VMP 9 Poster
Breit interaction effects on the alignment of highly–charged heavy ions following dielectronic recombination — Andrey Surzhykov1,2, •Thomas Stöhlker1,2, and Stephan Fritzsche2,3 — 1Universität Heidelberg — 2GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH — 3Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies
Dielectronic recombination (DR) is a resonant process in which a free electron is captured by a heavy ion under the simultaneous excitation of a bound electron, and where the resulting multiply excited ion is subsequently stabilized by photon emission. During recent years, this resonant capture has attracted a lot of interest, both by experiment and theory, since it provides a unique tool in order to investigate the electron–electron (e–e) interaction in the presence of strong fields. Sizeable effects due to the relativistic (Breit) contribution to the e–e interaction were predicted especially for the capture cross sections and confirmed in recent DR experiments with Li–like heavy ions [1].
In contrast to DR cross sections, much less is known of how the Breit interaction influences the alignment of the residual ions. In this contribution, we present the density matrix formalism for describing the magnetic sublevel population of the excited ionic states following DR. Based on this formalism, we show that the Breit interaction between the electrons may qualitatively affect the alignment of heavy ions and, hence, the angular distribution and polarization of the subsequent photon emission. Detailed calculations are presented for the DR of initially H– and Li–like iodine, bismuth and uranium ions.
[1] N. Nakamura et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 (2008) 073203.