Role of Projectile Coherence in Close Heavy Ion-Atom Collisions

Abstract

We have measured fully differential cross sections for single ionization and transfer ionization (TI) in 16 MeV O(7+)+He collisions. The impact parameters mostly contributing to single ionization are about an order of magnitude larger than for TI. Therefore, the projectile beam was much more coherent for the latter compared to the former process. The measured data suggest that, as a result, TI is significantly affected by interference effects which are not present in single ionization.