Ion pair production in Li-Cs collisions

Abstract
A beam-gas technique is used to measure absolute nd relative cross sections, Q, for the ion pair production reaction Li+Cs to Li-+Cs+-3.27 eV, where the atoms and ions are in the ground state. The measurements are made with Li as a projectile over the laboratory energy range from 1000 to 5500 eV. The data show that Q is a monotonically increasing function of the relative velocity with values ranging from 0.79 to 9.2 AA2. The Q curve can be qualitatively explained by the poor coupling in at least the first step of a ladder-climbing process between the incoming covalent and outgoing ionic potentials.