Ion-impact-induced interatomic Coulombic decay in neon and argon dimers

Abstract

We investigate the contribution of interatomic Coulombic decay induced by ion impact in neon and argon dimers (Ne${}_{2}$ and Ar${}_{2}$) to the production of low-energy electrons. Our experiments cover a broad range of perturbation strengths and reaction channels. We use 11.37 MeV/u S${}^{14+}$, 0.125 MeV/u He${}^{1+}$, 0.1625 MeV/u He${}^{1+}$, and 0.150 MeV/u He${}^{2+}$ as projectiles and study ionization, single and double electron transfer to the projectile, as well as projectile electron loss processes. The application of a COLTRIMS reaction microscope enables us to retrieve the three-dimensional momentum vectors of the ion pairs of the fragmenting dimer into Ne${}^{q+}$-Ne${}^{1+}$ and Ar${}^{q+}$-Ar${}^{1+}$ ($q=$ 1, 2, 3) in coincidence with at least one emitted electron.