Ion-charge distribution in fast, partially stripped clusters passing thin foils - art. no. 064901

We provide a self-consistent theoretical model describing the vicinage effe ct on charge states of partially stripped ions in a large cluster traversin g a thin solid foil at a high speed. Starting from Brandt-Kitagawa variatio nal theory for the effective charge on a fast heavy ion, supplemented by th e dynamically screened interionic interactions within the cluster, we obtai n a nonlinear integral equation for a function describing the spatial distr ibution of ion charges throughout the cluster. Numerical solutions of such an equation show that the ions in the cluster interior become increasingly neutralized as the cluster size grows.