Accelerator-based atomic and molecular collision physics

Accelerators have been shown to have great utility in addressing a broad range of problems in experimental atomic physics. There are, of course, phenomena such as inner-shell MO promotion which can occur only at high collision energies. At much higher energies, large transient Coulomb fields can be generated which lead to copious production electron-positron pairs and to capture of electrons from the negative continuum. But in addition, many advantages can be gained by carrying out low-energy (center-of-mass) collisions at high laboratory energies, specifically in a single pass mode or in multi-pass modes in ion storage rings in which, e.g., collision in the milli-electron volt region can be achieved for electron-molecule reactions. Certain advantages also accrue using open-quotes reverse kinematicsclose quotes in which high velocity ions collide with almost open-quotes stationaryclose quotes electrons as in resonant transfer and excitation (RTE) and collisions of energetic ions in the dense open-quotes electron gasclose quotes found in crystal channels