Production of Very-Low-Energy Highly Charged Ions by Synchrotron Radiation

Very-low-energy highly charged ions have been produced by use of white and monochromatic x rays from a wiggler line at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory to generate vacancy cascades following inner-shell photoionization. Recoil-ion energies have been determined and are shown to correspond essentially to room temperatures, even for high charge states. Promising applications to study of the interaction of stellar radiation with cold matter, to high-brightness ionsource development, to precision spectroscopy, and to angle-resolved chemical-physics reactive-scattering studies are discussed.