Electron capture and ionization dynamics in ion-Rydberg collisions

<p>"This thesis focuses on how classical mechanics can be used to help determine the collision dynamics of simple ion-atom collision systems. It was once thought that all particle collisions must be calculated via quantum mechanics in order to obtain meaningful results. The problem with quantum mechanical calculations is that each state and sub-state of a collision system must be specified prior to the calculation. This requires an enormous amount of storage and computation time. As a result, detailed quantum calculations, i.e. closed-coupling calculations (Lundsgaard et al 1994, 1995, 1996), must truncate the basis set in order to obtain results in a finite amount of time. We will use classical mechanics, statistics and computers to provide qualitative and often quantitative agreement with experiments. In some cases, the use of the classical trajectory Monte Carlo method (CTMC) provides results when quantum mechanical calculations can not. The CTMC method only requires the momentum and position vectors of the particles involved and an expression for the potentials between each interacting particle.</p> <p>The CTMC method used in this thesis has been applied to simple three-body collision systems involving a projectile, target nucleus and electron. Projectiles of various charges are used in collisions with aligned, highly excited or Rydberg targets. These were used to investigate the collision dynamics over a wide range of projectile speeds and configurations, including circular and elliptical Rydberg targets. Our results show that alignment of the target has a profound effect on the collision dynamics of the system. In many cases, certain target configurations increase the probability of the electron being captured, while others increase the probability of the electron being ionized"--Abstract, page iv.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph. D. in Physics

Grantor

University of Missouri--Rolla

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Cornelius, Kevin Ray

• Physics

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/doctoral_dissertations/1350

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarsmine.mst.edu:doctoral_dissertations-2352