Probing the helium dimer by relativistic highly-charged projectiles

TL;DR

This paper investigates how relativistic highly-charged projectiles fragment helium dimers, revealing unique interaction features and enabling precise probing of the dimer's ground state and binding energy.

Contribution

It introduces the use of relativistic highly-charged projectiles to study helium dimers, highlighting their ability to probe extended molecular states and measure binding energies accurately.

Findings

Relativistic projectiles cause unique fragmentation patterns.

They can accurately probe the helium dimer's ground state.

The method allows precise determination of binding energy.

Abstract

We study the fragmentation of He$_2$ dimers into He$^+$ ions by relativistic highly-charged projectiles. It is demonstrated that the interaction between an ultrafast projectile with an extremely extended object -- the helium dimer -- possesses interesting features which are absent in collisions with "normal" molecules. It is also shown that such projectiles, due to their enormous interaction range, can accurately probe the ground state of the dimer and even be used for a precise determination of its binding energy.