Paper published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2725 (2000)

Drastic Enhancement of Energy-Loss Straggling of Relativistic Heavy Ions due to Charge-State Fluctuations

H. Weick1,2, H. Geissel1,2, C. Scheidenberger1, F. Attallah1, D. Cortina1, M. Hausmann1, G. Münzenberg1, T. Radon1, H. Schatz1, K. Schmidt1, J. Stadlmann2, K. Sümmerer1, M. Winkler1
1Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
2II.Physikalisches Institut, Universität Gießen, 35392 Gießen, Germany

Abstract:

Stopping power and energy-loss straggling of 197Au, 208Pb, and 209Bi projectiles have been measured in different solids (4 < Z2 < 82) in the energy range (100 - 1000) MeV/u. The experimental results clearly demonstrate the influence of the different charge states of the ions. Due to charge-state fluctuations the energy-loss straggling is up to seven times larger than the pure collisional straggling. The selected energy domain in combination with the heavy projectiles allows for the first time an unambiguous interpretation of the long-standing problem of charge-changing collisions in energy-loss straggling.


The full article is available from APS, Physical Review Letters , download pdf .