Two-center dielectronic recombination

TL;DR

This paper investigates a two-center dielectronic recombination process where electron-ion recombination is enhanced by a neighboring atom's excitation, potentially surpassing single-center recombination at nanometer distances, with implications for various physical systems.

Contribution

It introduces and analyzes a novel two-center dielectronic recombination mechanism that can dominate over traditional single-center processes at nanometer scales.

Findings

Two-center dielectronic recombination can dominate at several nanometers.

The process is relevant for water-dissolved alkali cations.

Implications for warm dense matter are demonstrated.

Abstract

In the presence of a neighboring atom, electron-ion recombination can proceed resonantly via excitation of an electron in the atom, with subsequent relaxation through radiative decay. It is shown that this two-center dielectronic process can largely dominate over single-center radiative recombination at internuclear distances as large as several nanometers. The relevance of the predicted process is demonstrated by using examples of water-dissolved alkali cations and warm dense matter.