Coulomb focusing and ''path'' interference of autoionizing electrons produced in 10 keV He+ + He collisions

Autoionizing electrons emitted following low energy ion-atom collisions may scatter significantly from the receding spectator ion's attractive Coulomb field. In such cases the observed electron intensity is ''focused'' in the direction of the scattering ion as a result of the effective compression of the emission solid angle. In addition, interference may occur between trajectories, corresponding to electrons scattering around opposite sides of the ion, which lead to the same final laboratory electron energy and emission angle. This Coulomb ''path'' interference mechanism manifests itself in the uncharacteristically rapid angular dependence of the He target 2s21S autoionizing state measured near 0 degree following low energy He+ + He collisions. A classical trajectory model for Coulomb focusing is presented and a semi-classical approximation is used to model the Coulomb ''path'' interference mechanism. In this description we account for the evolution of the phase of the autoionizing state until its decay and the path dependence of the amplitude of the emitted electron following decay of the autoionizing state. Calculated model lineshapes, which include contributions from adjacent overlapping resonances, reproduce quite well the angular dependence observed in the data near 0 degree. 14 refs., 7 figs