Theoretical Study of Few-Body Processes

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Collision physics is currently enjoying an incredibly exciting time as a consequence of recent new experimental advances. One of these advances is the COLTRIMS (cold-target recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy) method which can be used to obtain full three-dimensional pictures of a collision process. These 3D pictures contain very detailed information about the fundamental forces controlling nature on the atomic level and the challenge for theory is to see if our theoretical models can accurately predict what is observed experimentally. One of the most sensitive probes of the important fundamental forces is charged particle ionization of atoms/molecules. The purpose of the NSF funded work is to theoretically examine several open questions in the field of charged particle ionization of atoms and molecules for both the 3-body and 4-body problems and for both electron-impact and heavy-particle impact.There are several broader impacts for the project. (1) The students who work on this project learn analytical and numerical techniques that are valuable for a career in either academia or industry. (2) The results of this research will be disseminated broadly in leading peer-reviewed journals and presented at scientific conferences. (3) The cutting-edge research will help establish important benchmarks for future research on interactions at the atomic level and it will lead to new theoretical insight on an important topic of fundamental significance. (4) The work will provide theoretical support for at least eight experimental labs (2 NSF funded labs in the US, 2 in Germany, 1 in England, 2 in Australia, and 1 in China). (5) One component of the work is to investigate processes occurring in the constituent components of DNA with a long term objective to obtain an understanding of the effects of radiation damage on biological DNA.