Correlations between charge-changing interactions and projectile Kα x-ray emission in Ar+Xe collisions

Atomic inner-shell processes involving excitation, ionization, and charge transfer have been investigated for MeV/amu Ar+Xe collisions. The individual processes were isolated and identified by detecting coincidences between argon K x rays and the outgoing projectile charge states of interest. Measurements were made for 160- and 180-MeV argon ions with incident charge states q = 14, 15, and 17 colliding with Xe target atoms under single-collision conditions. Cross sections for argon K x rays coincident with the outgoing projectile charge states q-1, q+1, and q+2 were measured, as well as cross sections for total Kα x-ray production and total single-electron capture. The data indicate that nearly 50% of the x rays emitted by the projectile are associated with some kind of charge-changing event. For K x rays coincident with single-electron capture it is expected that the recently discovered process of resonant transfer and excitation contributes to the measured cross section