DOI: 10.1209/epl/i2003-00378-5
Europhys. Lett., 62 (4) , pp. 477-483 (2003)

Revealing the non- s² contributions in the momentum wave function of ground-state

H. Schmidt-Böcking¹, V. Mergel¹, R. Dörner¹, C. L. Cocke², O. Jagutzki¹, L. Schmidt¹, Th. Weber¹, H. J. Lüdde³, E. Weigold⁴, J. Berakdar⁵, H. Cederquist⁶, H. T. Schmidt⁶, R. Schuch⁶ and A. S. Kheifets<sup>4

1</sup>  Institut für Kernphysik, Universität Frankfurt August-Euler-Str. 6, 60486 Frankfurt, Germany
²  Department of Physics, Kansas State University - Manhattan, KA 66506, USA
³  Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Frankfurt Robert-Mayer-Str. 6, 60487 Frankfurt, Germany
⁴  RSPhysSE, Australian National University - Canberra 0200, Australia
⁵  Max-Planck Institut für Mikrostruktur Physik - Weinberg 2, 06120 Halle, Germany
⁶  Department of Physics, Stockholm University - S-10405 Stockholm, Sweden

schmidtb@ikf.uni-frankfurt.de

(Received 4 October 2002; accepted in final form 20 March 2003)

Abstract
The correlated Tunneling Transfer Ionization (TuTI) channel in fast 4-body processes is utilized to probe the highly correlated asymptotic parts of the ground-state momentum space wave function. In this reaction, predominantly at large nuclear impact parameters, one electron in the ground state is captured by the proton by tunneling through the two-center barrier when electron and proton velocity vectors resonantly match. The measured 3-particle final-state momentum distributions show characteristic features that we trace back to the highly correlated non- s² components of the ground-state momentum wave function. This conclusion is supported by a simple heuristic model.

PACS
34.70.+e - Charge transfer.
34.50.Fa - Electronic excitation and ionization of atoms (including beam-foil excitation and ionization).
39.90.+d - Other instrumentation and techniques for atomic and molecular physics.

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