Oscillatory behavior of charge transfer cross sections as a function of the charge of projectiles in low-energy collisions

To examine experimental cross sections for charge transfer in collisions of partially stripped heavy ions with atomic hydrogen at low collision energies, unitarized-distorted-wave-approximation calculations are performed using a model in which the projectiles are replaced by bare nuclei of a given effective charge. The results show the presence of a strong oscillatory dependence of the cross sections on effective charge due to the crossings of diabatic potential curves in the low-energy region below 10 keV/amu. The considerable differences in the measured cross sections for impacts of ions of different elements (B, C, N, and O) observed by Bayfield et al. and Crandall et al. at low impact energies are attributed to this oscillatory behavior.