Charge Transfer to Multicharged Recoil Ions in a Penning Trap

Abstract

Multicharged neon recoil ions at electronvolt energies are produced inside a Penning ion trap by fast, stripped-heavy-ion impact on neon atoms. The stored recoil ions capture electrons in collisions with the parent neon gas. The measured storage times are used with mean energy determinations and neon gas densities to determine charge-transfer rate coefficients. A significant dependence on ion charge ($3<~q<~6$) is observed.