Electron-Rydberg Collisions at eV and Sub-eV Energies

这个实验和理论相结合的项目侧重于研究电子与激发的里德伯原子在一个电子伏特左右的能量范围内的碰撞。 这项工作标志着早期NSF支持的努力在这一领域朝着解决星际介质中冷等离子体知识的重大差距的目标重新定向。 调查将集中在近弹性状态变化碰撞和电子碰撞电离选定的里德堡态n=20至40。 在实验上，一种新的余摆线电子单色器将被用来访问所需的能量范围。 在理论上，新发展的技术，包括隐藏交叉和Sturmian方法来研究库仑破裂接近阈值，将被应用到电子-里德伯系统。 除了内部的教师和学生，教师合作调查人员和学生从两个相邻的本科院校参与研究。

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.