Enhancement of charge capture from a laser-excited target by highly charged ions

Abstract
A charge-transfer experiment has been done in which 63-keV Ar7+ was incident on sodium in the ground and first excited states. The electron-capture ratio σ(Na(3p))/σ(Na(3s)) was experimentally determined for this system. The charge-capture cross section was observed to increase by a factor of 1.5 for the excited target.