THE ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF ELECTRONS FROM IONIZING COLLISIONS OF HEAVY PARTICLES
Abstract
The energy distributions of electrons ejected in ionizing collisions of rare gas ions and atoms were measured for incident particle energies of 0.30 to 3.0 kev. Similar measurements were made for ions, fast atoms or molecules of nitrogen and hydrogen. For the rare gases, the distribution seems to be composed of two dist nct parts; one is a continuous spectrum which has its largest value at the zero of electron self-energy followed by a rapid decrease; the second cons sts of a number of electron groups of limited energy range, which, in yield and in mean energy, are characteristic of the colliding particles. The relative importance of the two parts varies widely with the particles involved. For the molecular gases, only a continuous spectrum is found. A mechanism in which the characteristic electrons are produced by a radiationless transition (autoionization) is discussed, and for some cases the electron energies are related to particular excitations of the particles involved. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Dec 01, 1961
- Accession Number
- AD0275320
Entities
People
- H.w. Berry
Organizations
- Syracuse University