Electron-Rydberg Collisions at eV and Sub-eV Energies

这个实验和理论相结合的项目专注于研究电子与受激发的里德堡原子在约1电子伏特的能量范围内的碰撞。这项工作标志着早些时候NSF支持的这一领域的努力朝着解决星际介质中冷等离子体知识的显著差距的目标转变。研究将集中在选定的里德堡态n=20到40的近弹性态变化碰撞和电子碰撞电离。在实验上，将使用一种新的摆线电子单色仪来获得所需的能量范围。从理论上讲，新开发的技术，包括隐藏交叉和Sturmian方法，在接近阈值的情况下研究库仑分裂，将被应用于电子-里德堡系统。除了内部的教职员工和学生，教职员工联合调查员和来自两个相邻本科生机构的学生作为参与者参与了这项研究。

This combined experimental and theoretical project focuses on the study of collisions of electrons with excited Rydberg atoms in the energy range around one electron volt. This work marks a redirection of earlier NSF-supported efforts in this area toward the goal of addressing a significant gap in the knowledge of cool plasmas in the interstellar medium. The investigations will focus on near-elastic state-changing collisions and electron impact ionization of selected Rydberg states n=20 to 40. Experimentally, a new trochoidal electron monochromator will be used to access the energy range desired. Theoretically, newly developed techniques, including hidden crossing and Sturmian methods to study Coulomb breakup close to threshold, will be applied to the electron-Rydberg system. In addition to the in-house faculty and students, faculty co-investigators and students from two neighboring undergraduate institutions are involved as participants in the research.