Negative-continuum dielectronic recombination into excited states of highly-charged ions

Abstract

The recombination of a free electron into a bound state of bare, heavy nucleus under simultaneous production of bound-electron--free-positron pair is studied within the framework of relativistic first--order perturbation theory. This process, denoted as "negative-continuum dielectronic recombination" leads to a formation of not only the ground but also the singly- and doubly-excited states of the residual helium-like ion. The contributions from such an excited--state capture to the total as well as angle-differential cross-sections are studied in detail. Calculations are performed for the recombination of (initially) bare uranium U$^{92+}$ ions and for a wide range of collision energies. From these calculations, we find almost 75 % enhancement of the total recombination probability if the excited ionic states are taken into account.

8 pages, 4 figures, accepted to PRA