Simultaneous study of non equilibrated charge and excitation states of MeV/amu light atomic and molecular ions emerging from thin solid targets

The evolution of the relative population of a given excited state of atoms H0 or ions (He+) emerging from thin carbon foils bombarded with MeV/a.m.u. atomic H0, He+ and molecular (H2+, H3+) beams has been observed in equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations which are known to occur in charge exchange processes. The comparison between charge state and photon yield (transition n = 4 - 3) variations for He+ gives new informations about capture and excitation processes in the target. Strong enhancement of the relative population of the low excited state n = 2 in the He0 emerging beam is observed in non-equilibrium regime for H0 incident beam as for hydrogen molecular incident beams. In addition, specific molecular effects occur in the equilibrium regime