https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-11974-3
Regular Article
Quasi-four-body treatment of charge transfer in the collision of protons with atomic helium: I. Thomas related mechanisms
1
Department of Physics and Photonics, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, Iran
2
Faculty of Physics, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
3
Atomic and Molecular Physics Group, School of Physics, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran
* e-mail: mabolori@uk.ac.ir
Received:
28
January
2018
Accepted:
6
March
2018
Published online:
11
April
2018
The scattering of a completely bare ion by atoms larger than hydrogen is at least a four-body interaction, and the charge transfer channel involves a two-step process. Amongst the two-step interactions of the high-velocity single charge transfer in an anion-atom collision, there is one whose amplitude demonstrates a peak in the angular distribution of the cross sections. This peak, the so-called Thomas peak, was predicted by Thomas in a two-step interaction, classically, which could also be described through three-body quantum mechanical models. This work discusses a four-body quantum treatment of the charge transfer in ion-atom collisions, where two-step interactions illustrating a Thomas peak are emphasized. In addition, the Pauli exclusion principle is taken into account for the initial and final states as well as the operators. It will be demonstrated that there is a momentum condition for each two-step interaction to occur in a single charge transfer channel, where new classical interactions lead to the Thomas mechanism.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2018
