Knowledge of the atomic number (Zt) dependence of ion-induced electron emission yields (Y) can be the basis for a general understanding of ion-atom interaction phenomena and, in particular, for the design of Zrsensitive detectors that could be useful, for example, in the separation of isobars in accelerator mass spectrometry. The Zx dependence of ion-induced electron emission yields has been investigated using heavy ions of identical velocity (v = 2 v0, with v0 as the Bohr velocity) incident in a normal direction on sputter-cleaned carbon foils. Yields measured in this work plotted as a function of the ion's atomic number reveal an oscillatory behavior with pronounced maxima and minima. This nonmonotonic dependence of the yield on Zx will be discussed in the light of existing theories.

Charge state dependence of L-shell x-ray production cross sections have been measured for 4-14 MeV ¹⁶O^q (q=3⁺-8⁺) ions incident on ultra-clean, ultra-thin copper, and for 12 MeV ¹⁶O^q (q=3⁺-8⁺) on nickel, zinc, gallium and germanium solid foils. L-shell x-ray production cross section were measured using target foils of thickness ≤0.6 μg/cm² evaporated onto 5 μg/cm² carbon backings. Oxygen ions at MeV energies and charge state q were produced using a 3MV 9SDH-2 National Electrostatics Corporation tandem Pelletron accelerator. Different charge states, with and without K-vacancies, were produced using a post acceleration nitrogen striping gas cell or ¹²C stripping foils. L-shell x-rays from ultra-thin ₂₈Ni, ₂₉Cu,₃₀Zn,₃₁Ga, and ₃₂Ge targets were measured using a Si(Li) x-ray detector with a FWHM resolution of 135 eV at 5.9 keV. The scattered projectiles were detected simultaneously by means of silicon surface barrier detectors at angle of 45° and 169° with respect to the beam direction. The electron capture (EC) as well as direct ionization (DI) contributions were determined from the projectile charge state dependence of the target x-ray production cross sections under single collision conditions. The present work was undertaken to expand the measurements of L-shell x-ray production cross sections upon selected elements with low L-shell binding energies by energetic ¹⁶O^q (q=3⁺,4⁺,5⁺,6⁺,7⁺,8⁺) incident ions. Collision systems chosen for this work have sufficiently large Z₁/Z₂ ratios (0.25-0.28) so that EC may noticeably contribute to the x-ray production enhancement. In this region, reliable experimental data are particularly scarce, thus, fundamental work in this area is still necessary. DI and EC cross section measurements were compared with the ECPSSR and the first Born theories over the range of 0.25 <Z₁/Z₂ < 0.29 and 0.38 < v₁/v₂_L <0.72. The ECPSSR theoretical predictions (including DI and EC) are in closer agreement with the data than the first Born's.

The charge state dependence of M-shell x-ray production cross sections of 67HO bombarded by 2-12 MeV carbon ions with and without K-vacancies are reported. The experiment was performed using an NEC 9SDH-2 tandem accelerator at the Ion Beam Modification and Analysis Laboratory of the University of North Texas. The high charge state carbon ions were produced by a post-accelerator stripping gas cell. Ultra-clean holmium targets were used in ion-atom collision to generate M-shell x rays at energies from 1.05 to 1.58 keV. The x-ray measurements were made with a windowless Si(Li) x-ray detector that was calibrated using radiative sources, particle induced x-ray emission (PIXE), and the atomic field bremsstrahlung (AFB) techniques.

Changes of semimajor axes of giant planets, which took place 4 billion years ago and evolved the Solar System towards its present state, affected various populations of minor Solar-System bodies. One of these populations was a group of dynamically stable asteroids in the 2:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter which reside in two islands of the phase space, denoted A and B, and exhibit lifetimes comparable to the age of the Solar System. The origin of stable asteroids has not been explained so far. Our main goal is to create a viable hypothesis of their origin. We update the resonant population and its physical properties on the basis of up-to-date observational data. Using an N-body model with seven giant planets and the Yarkovsky effect included, we demonstrate that the depletion of island A is faster compared to island B. We then investigate: (i) survivability of primordial resonant asteroids and (ii) capture of the population during planetary migration, using a recently described scenario with an escaping fifth giant planet and a jumping-Jupiter instability. We employ simulations with prescribed migration, smooth late migration and we statistically evaluate the results using dynamical maps. We also model collisions during the last 4 billion years. We conclude that the long-lived group was created by a...

When molecules are excited by photons or energetic particles, they will cool through the emission of photons, electrons, or by fragmenting. Such processes are often thermal as they occur after the excitation energy has been redistributed across all degrees-of-freedom in the system. Collisions with atoms or ions may also lead to ultrafast fragmentation in Rutherford-like scattering processes, where one or several atoms can literally be knocked out of the molecule by the incoming projectile before the energy can be completely redistributed. The resulting fragmentation pathways can in such knockout processes be very different from those in thermal processes. This thesis covers extensive studies of collisions between ions/atoms and isolated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules, isolated fullerene molecules, or clusters of these. The high stabilities and distinct fragmentation channels make these types of molecules excellent test cases for characterizing knockout-driven fragmentation and the reactions that these processes can lead to. I will present experimental measurements for a wide range of energies and compare them with my own molecular dynamics simulations and quantum chemical calculations. In this thesis, I present an in-depth study of the role of knockout in the energetic processing of molecules and clusters. The competition between knockout and thermally driven fragmentation is discussed in detail. Knockout-driven fragmentation is shown to result in exotic fragments that are far more reactive than the intact parent molecules or fragments from thermal processes. When such reactive species are formed within molecular clusters efficient molecular growth can take place on sub-picosecond timescales. The cluster environments are crucial here because they protect the newly formed molecules by absorbing excess energy. This is a possible pathway for the growth of large PAHs, fullerenes, and similar carbonaceous complexes found in, for instance, the interstellar medium. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted.</p>

No description available.

Este trabalho relata o processo de fotoionização associativa em átomos ultrafrios de sódio confinados por uma armadilha magneto-óptica. O comportamento da constante de reação Kpai é medido em função da intensidade dos feixes de aprisionamento, também em função da freqüência de um segundo laser. Este estudo mostrou que fotoionização ocorre em um processo de várias etapas e mostrou a importância da emissão espontânea em colisões ultrafrias. Nós confirmamos experimentalmente pela primeira vez o processo de blindagem óptica, o qual evita a interação dos átomos com a luz incidente. O entendimento deste processo é relevante se desejar-se aumentar o número e a densidade das amostras atômicas aprisionadas. / This works reports on the photo-associative ionization process in ultracold sodium atoms confined in a magneto optical trap. The behavior of the rate constant Kpai is measured as a function of the trapping beams intensity, and as a function of the frequency of a second laser. This study showed that photo-associative ionization occurs in a multi-step process and also showed the importance of spontaneous emission in ultracold collisions. We experimentally confirmed for the first time the Optical Shielding process which prevents atoms from approaching due to repulsive states induced by the interaction of the atoms with the incident light. The understanding of this process is relevant if one intends to increase the number and density of trapped atomic samples.

We perform an event-by-event hydrodynamic analysis for Pb-Pb collisions at the incident energy of sqrt(sNN) = 2.76TeV, also studying the effects of two equations of state under the same initial conditions and freeze-out scenario: one characterized by a critical point and the other based on Lattice QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics) calculations. The observables of interest are particle spectra in terms of pseudorapidity and transverse momentum, as well as flow harmonics, which are coefficients that carry information on the initial anisotropies of the system throughout its evolution. Those are computed and compared with experimental Large Hadron Collider (LHC) data. There are slight differences in the results for each equation of state, caused by their distinct features. Lastly, the LHC-based calculations are compared with previous works related to the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) experimental data. The main techniques of the latter are performed in this work, which results in differences between some aspects in the outcome for each collision type, from initial energy distributions to freeze-out temperatures. / É feita uma análise de hidrodinâmica evento-por-evento para colisões de Pb-Pb à energia incidente de sqrt(sNN) = 2.76TeV. Estudamos os efeitos de duas equações de estado sob as mesmas condições iniciais e desacoplamento: uma é caracterizada por um ponto crítico e a outra é baseada em cálculos de Lattice QCD (Cromodinâmica Quântica). Os observáveis de interesse são os espectros de partículas em termos da pseudo rapidez e momento transversal, assim como os coeficientes harmônicos de Fourier que, por sua vez, carregam as anisotropias iniciais do sistema durante toda a sua evolução. Tais observáveis são calculados e comparados com dados experimentais do Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Por fim, os cálculos baseados em parâmetros referentes às energias do LHC são comparados com trabalhos anteriores feitos com base em dados experimentais do Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC). Os principais métodos usados no caso anterior são aplicados a este trabalho, o que resulta em algumas diferenças entre os resultados dos dois tipos de colisão, desde a distribuição de energia inicial a temperaturas de freeze-out.

O advento dos colisores modernos tem proporcionado novas possibilidades de estudo em física de partículas como, por exemplo, a busca por nova física e o estudo de novos estados da matéria hadrônica. Em particular, em colisões de íons pesados em altas energias, acredita-se que um novo estado da matéria seja formado antes da colisão, o chamado condensado de vidros de cor. Tal estado seria a condição inicial de um plasma de quarks e glúons e é caracterizado por altas densidades de pártons (quarks e glúons). De fato, as equações de evolução da Cromodinâmica Quântica predizem que, para virtualidades moderadas e altas energias, os hádrons se tornam sistemas extremamente densos devido ao crescimento das distribuições de glúons nessas condições. Um crescimento indefinido das distribuições de glúons poderia levar à violação do vínculo de unitariedade. Para evitar essa violação, existe um mecanismo chamado de saturação de pártons o qual contém o crescimento das distribuições de quarks e glúons de forma a respeitar o vínculo de unitariedade. Teoricamente, no limite de altas energias, observa-se que os hádrons são populados especialmente por glúons. Experimentalmente, existem indícios da saturação em colisões ep, pp, pA e AA, contudo, isso ainda é uma questão em aberto. Portanto, no limite de altas densidades, espera- se que a física não linear, a qual leva em conta efeitos de recombinações de glúon, passe a se manifestar. Uma alternativa para o estudo da saturação em colisores hadrônicos são os processos foto-induzidos, os quais ocorrem em interações ultraperiféricas. Em uma colisão ultraperiférica entre dois hádrons, o parâmetro de impacto é maior do que a soma dos raios dos hádrons, de forma que interações fortes são suprimidas. Dessa forma os hádrons atuam como fontes de fótons (quase reais) podendo ocorrer interações fóton-hádron e fóton-fóton. Nesse trabalho estudamos a fotoprodução difrativa de mésons vetoriais em energias do LHC para colisões ultraperiféricas próton-próton, próton-núcleo e núcleo-núcleo e a produção dupla de mésons vetoriais em colisões fóton-fóton e devido ao mecanismo de duplo espalhamento fóton-p(A). Mostramos como esses processos podem ser usados para estudar a física de altas energias e os efeitos de saturação. Os efeitos de saturação em nossos cálculos são levados em conta através do formalismo de dipolo de cor, que é uma das ferramentas básicas usadas nessa tese. O tratamento de colisões ultraperiféricas hádron-hádron foi feito com a aproximação de fótons equivalentes que assim como o formalismo de dipolo, foi extensamente usada. Nossos resultados apontam que o estudo fenomenológico e experimental dos tipos de processos citados acima são factíveis e podem ser usados para vincular a dinâmica da QCD em altas energias. / The advent of the modern colliders has provided new possibilities of study in particle physics as, for example, the search for new physics and the study of new states of the hadronic matter. In particular, in high energy heavy ion collisions is expected that a new state can be formed before the collision, the so called Color Glass Condensate. This state would be the initial condition of the Quark Gluon Plasma and is characterized by high parton (quarks and gluons) densities. Indeed, the Quantum Chromodynamics evolution equations predict that, for moderate virtualities and high energies, the hadrons become extremely dense systems due to the growth of the parton distribution in these conditions. An indefinite growth of the parton distributions could lead to the violation of the unitarity bound. To avoid this violation, there is a mechanism called parton saturation which tames the growth of the parton distributions to satisfy the unitarity bound. Theoretically, in the high energy limit, one can see that the hadrons are populated mainly by gluons. Experimentally, there are indications of the saturation in ep, pp, pA and AA collisions, however, this is an open question. So, in the high density limit, we expect that the nonlinear physics, which takes into account gluon recombination effects start to manifest itself. An alternative for the study of the saturation at hadronic colliders are the photon-induced processes, which occurs in ultra-peripheral collisions. In a ultra-peripheral collision between two hadrons the impact parameter is greater than the sum of the radii of the hadrons, so the strong interaction is suppressed. Thus, the hadrons act as sources of (almost real) photons and may occur photon-hadron and photon-photon interactions. In this work we study the diffractive photoproduction of vector mesons at LHC and future colliders energies in ultra-peripheral proton-proton, proton-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collisions and the double vector meson production in photon-photon collisions and due to the double photon-p(A) scattering mechanism. We show how these processes can be used to study the high energy physics and the saturation effects. These effects are considered in our calculations through the color dipole formalism, which is one of the basic tools used in this thesis. The treatment of the ultra-peripheral hadron-hadron collisions was done through the equivalent photon approximation that just as in the dipole formalism, was widely used. Our results point that the phenomenological and experimental studies of the processes cited above are feasible and can be used to constraint the QCD dynamics in high energies.

A produção de J/, e 0 em colisões p+p a uma energia no referencial do centro de massa (ps) de 200 GeV foi estudada no Experimento PHENIX no RHIC. A amostra de dados coletada durante o período de aquisição de 2006 permitiu não somente a determinação das seções de choque absolutas, mas também o estudo da polarização de J/, através de seu decaimento no canal de dieltrons em região de rapidez central. As medidas incluem a dependência com o momento transverso e são comparadas com aquelas de outros experimentos em diferentes intervalos de rapidez e energias de colisão, e com previsões teóricas. A medida da polarização de J/, deve trazer limitações aos mecanismos de formação de charmonium e a medida de feed-down de J/, s provenientes de ´ é de importância para o entendimento da produção prompt de J/, assim como para a supressão observada em colisões A+A no RHIC. / The production of J/´psi´e ´psi´collisions at the nucleon center of mass energy ´(s pot.1/2)´ have been studied in the PHENIX Experiment at RHIC. The sample collected during the 2006 data taking period allowed not only the determination of absolute cross sections but also the study of J= polarization through its decays into the dielectron channel at mid rapidity. The measurements include transverse momentum dependence and are compared to that of other experiments in different rapidity ranges and collision energies and to theoretical model predictions. The J= polarization results should provide a constraint on charmonium formation mechanisms and the measurement of the feed down of 0 to J= is of importance for understanding prompt J= production as well as the suppression observed in A+A collisions at RHIC.