THEORY OF DOUBLE-ELECTRON CAPTURE IN SLOW COLLISIONS INVOLVING MULTIPLY-CHARGED IONS

The main purpose of our study is a deeper understanding of fundamental collisional dynamics at correlated transitions of electrons in many-e lectron transient quasimolecules formed by colliding atoms. The theory involves calculation of two-electron Quasimolecular Diabatic States ( QDS) and use of multichannel models to describe the scattering problem . The potential interaction of QDS in the vicinities of their pseudo-c rossings are analyzed by use of the configuration interaction method. A theoretical study is made of Single - and Double-Electron Capture (S EC and DEC) by totally stripped N7+ ions from helium atoms in the coll ision velocity range upsilon = 0.05 - 1 a.u. For the N7+ - He system o ur study has revealed the evidence of correlated DEC and it does not c orroborate the mechanism of correlated DEC as involving a virtual tr ansition to the single-electron capture channel.