Evidence for electron correlation during double capture in fast (<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>v</mml:mi><mml:mi>∼</mml:mi><mml:mn>10</mml:mn></mml:math>a.u.) collisions

Abstract

Two-electron capture involving simultaneous transfer of an electron to the continuum (or to a Rydberg state) and a bound state has been investigated for collisions of 3.5 MeV/u ${\mathrm{Ne}}^{10+}$ with He, Ne, and Ar targets. The extent of this double capture to nonequivalent electron configurations is found to exceed expectations of the independent-particle model suggesting that electron correlation may contribute significantly to two-electron capture even in fast ($v\ensuremath{\sim}10$ a.u.) collisions.