Optical studies of the products of charge exchange between He+ and CO

The optical emission from the A-X and B-X transitions of CO+ produced by charge exchange collisions between He+ and CO have been examined over the incident ion energy range 500 to 1500 eV. Absolute excitation cross sections for the transitions were measured from 200 to 1500 eV and compared with measurements of the total charge exchange cross section. To account for the difference between the two sets of measurements, amounting to a factor of 30 at low ion energies and a factor of 4 at higher energies, alternate reactions are proposed.