Storage Ring Cross Section Measurements for Electron Impact Ionization of Fe^11+ Forming Fe^12+ and Fe^13+

TL;DR

This study provides precise measurements of electron impact ionization cross sections for Fe^11+ ions, revealing discrepancies with previous data and theoretical models, especially regarding autoionization channels, using a storage ring method.

Contribution

First experimental cross sections for Fe^11+ ionization measured with a storage ring, highlighting differences from prior experiments and theoretical calculations.

Findings

Single ionization cross section is 30% smaller than previous measurements.

Discrepancies found between experimental data and distorted wave calculations.

Double ionization mainly occurs via autoionization after inner-shell ionization.

Abstract

We report ionization cross section measurements for electron impact single ionization (EISI) of Fe^11+$ forming Fe^12+ and electron impact double ionization (EIDI) of Fe^11+ forming Fe^13+. The measurements cover the center-of-mass energy range from approximately 230 eV to 2300 eV. The experiment was performed using the heavy ion storage ring TSR located at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik in Heidelberg, Germany. The storage ring approach allows nearly all metastable levels to relax to the ground state before data collection begins. We find that the cross section for single ionization is 30% smaller than was previously measured in a single pass experiment using an ion beam with an unknown metastable fraction. We also find some significant differences between our experimental cross section for single ionization and recent distorted wave (DW) calculations. The DW Maxwellian EISI rate coefficient for Fe^11+ forming Fe^12+ may be underestimated by as much as 25% at temperatures for which Fe^11+ is abundant in collisional ionization equilibrium. This is likely due to the absence of 3s excitation-autoionization (EA) in the calculations. However, a precise measurement of the cross section due to this EA channel was not possible because this process is not distinguishable experimentally from electron impact excitation of an n=3 electron to levels of n > 44 followed by field ionization in the charge state analyzer after the interaction region. Our experimental results also indicate that the double ionization cross section is dominated by the indirect process in which direct single ionization of an inner shell 2l electron is followed by autoionization resulting in a net double ionization.