Dominance of the Breit interaction in the x-ray emission of highly charged ions following dielectronic recombination.

ABSTRACT

The Breit interaction typically appears as a-more or less small-correction to the Coulomb repulsion acting among the electrons. We here propose two x-ray measurements on the angular distribution and linear polarization of the 1s2s(2)2p(1/2) J=1-->1s(2)2s(2) J=0 electric-dipole radiation of high-Z, beryllium-like ions, following the resonant electron capture into initially lithium-like ions, for which the Breit interaction strongly dominates the Coulomb repulsion and leads to a qualitative change in the expected x-ray emission pattern. The proposed measurements are feasible with present-day x-ray detectors and may serve a stringent test on relativistic corrections to the electron-electron interaction in the presence of strong fields.