title: Metal vapor target for precise studies of ion-atom collisions.
abstract: Although different ion-atom collisions have been studied in various contexts, precise values of cross-sections for many atomic processes were seldom obtained. One of the main uncertainties originates from the value of target densities. In this paper, we describe a unique method to measure a target density precisely with a combination of physical vapor deposition and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. This method is preliminarily applied to a charge transfer cross-section measurement in collisions between highly charged ions and magnesium vapor. The final relative uncertainty of the target density is less than 2.5%. This enables the precise studies of atomic processes in ion-atom collisions, even though in the trial test the deduction of precise capture cross-sections was limited by other systematic errors.
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vorobyev
authors.affiliation: Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000 Gansu, China.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Herfurth
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: P-M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Hillenbrand
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Spillmann
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Institut Jena Fröbelstieg 3, 07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Trotsenko
authors.affiliation: ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI and Research Division, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gumberidze
authors.affiliation: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany.
authors.forename: Th
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Stöhlker