Water-assisted electron capture exceeds photorecombination in biological conditions.

A decade ago, an electron-attachment process called interatomic Coulombic electron capture has been predicted to be possible through energy transfer to a nearby neighbor. It has been estimated to be competitive with environment-independent photorecombination, but its general relevance has yet to be established. Here, we evaluate the capability of alkali and alkaline earth metal cations to capture a free electron by assistance from a nearby water molecule. We introduce a characteristic distance rIC for this energy transfer mechanism in equivalence to the Förster radius. Our results show that water-assisted electron capture dominates over photorecombination beyond the second hydration shell of each cation for electron energies above a threshold. The assisted capture reaches distances equivalent to a fifth to seventh solvation shell for the studied cations. The far reach of the assisted electron capture is of significant general interest to the broad spectrum of research fields dealing with low-energy electrons, in particular radiation-induced damage of biomolecules. The here introduced distance measure will enable quantification of the role of the environment for assisted electron attachment.

Nonsequential double ionization of Ar in near-single-cycle laser pulses.

Using the improved quantitative rescattering (QRS) model, we simulate the correlated two-electron momentum distributions (CMD) for nonsequential double ionization (NSDI) of Ar by near-single-cycle laser pulses with a wavelength of 750 nm at an intensity of 2.8 × 1014 W/cm2. With the accurate cross sections obtained from fully quantum mechanical calculations for both electron impact excitation and electron impact ionization of Ar+, we unambiguously identify the contributions from recollision direct ionization (RDI) and recollision excitation with subsequent ionization (RESI). Our analysis reveals that RESI constitutes the main contribution to NSDI of Ar under the conditions considered here. The simulated results are directly compared with experimental measurements [Bergues et al., Nature Commun. 3, 813 (2012)] in which each NSDI event is tagged with the carrier-envelope phase (CEP). It is found that the overall pattern of both the CEP-resolved and the CEP-averaged CMDs measured in experiment are well reproduced by the QRS model, and the cross-shaped structure in the CEP-averaged CMD is attributed to the strong forward scattering of the recolliding electron as well as the depletion effect in tunneling ionization of the electron from an excited state of the parent ion.

Intensity dependence in nonsequential double ionization of helium.

Using the quantitative rescattering model, we simulate the correlated two-electron momentum distributions for nonsequential double ionization of helium by 800 nm laser pulses at intensities in the range of (2 - 15) × 1014 W/cm2. The experimentally observed V-shaped structure at high intensities [A. Rudenko et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 263003 (2007)] is attributed to the strong forward scattering in laser-induced recollision excitation and the asymmetric momentum distribution of electrons that are tunneling-ionized from the excited states. The final-state electron repulsion also plays an important role in forming the V-shaped structure.

Electron-impact ionization of neon at low projectile energy: an internormalized experiment and theory for a complex target.

As a fundamental test for state-of-the-art theoretical approaches, we have studied the single ionization (2p) of neon at a projectile energy of 100 eV. The experimental data were acquired using an advanced reaction microscope that benefits from high efficiency and a large solid-angle acceptance of almost 4π. We put special emphasis on the ability to measure internormalized triple-differential cross sections over a large part of the phase space. The data are compared to predictions from a second-order hybrid distorted-wave plus R-matrix model and a fully nonperturbative B-spline R-matrix (BSR) with pseudostates approach. For a target of this complexity and the low-energy regime, unprecedented agreement between experiment and the BSR model is found. This represents a significant step forward in the investigation of complex targets.

Nonperturbative treatment of ionization with excitation of helium by electron impact.

We present cross sections for electron-impact ionization and simultaneous ionization plus excitation of helium by electron impact. The results are obtained from a fully nonperturbative close-coupling formalism using our B-spline R-matrix approach. A large number of pseudostates in the expansion of the wave function represent the coupling to the ionization continuum. We obtain excellent agreement with the directly measured experimental cross section ratios (Bellm et al., Phys. Rev. A 75, 042704 (2007)) for ionization leaving the residual He⁺ ion in either the 1s ground state or the n = 2 (2s + 2p) excited states.