CHARGE-TRANSFER IN ION COLLISIONS WITH CIRCULAR RYDBERG ATOMS

Recent experimental measurements of charge transfer in ion collisions with circular-state Rydberg atoms (for which m=l=n-1) can be qualitati vely reproduced using an elementary atomic model consisting of a class ical electron in a circular orbit with an arbitrary axis of rotation d efined by experiment. Contributions to capture are further separated i nto one-swap and three-swap charge transfer, revealing the relative im portance of a Thomaslike mechanism for charge transfer at ion velociti es of 1.00, 1.65, and 2.00 times the velocity of the target electron. The model is extended to estimate charge-transfer cross sections for i ons incident on elliptic-state Rydberg atoms of specific eccentricity.