Polarization studies on the two-step radiative recombination of highly-charged, heavy ions

TL;DR

This paper investigates the polarization and angular correlations of photons emitted during the two-step radiative recombination of highly-charged uranium ions, providing detailed theoretical analysis and calculations for various projectile energies.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic theoretical framework for analyzing polarization and angular correlations in two-step radiative recombination of high-Z ions, with detailed computations for uranium.

Findings

Polarization and angular correlations depend on projectile energy.

Derived a general expression for the double-differential recombination cross section.

Performed detailed calculations for uranium ions across a range of energies.

Abstract

The radiative recombination of a free electron into an excited state of a bare, high-Z ion is studied, together with its subsequent decay, within the framework of the density matrix theory and Dirac's relativistic equation. Special attention is paid to the polarization and angular correlations between the recombination and the decay photons. In order to perform a systematic analysis of these correlations the general expression for the double-differential recombination cross section is obtained by making use of the resonance approximation. Based on this expression, detailed computations for the linear polarization of x-ray photons emitted in the (e, 2\gamma) two-step recombination of uranium ions U^92+ are carried out for a wide range of projectile energies.