2023/09/17 by A. Jacob, Carsten Müller, Jacob, A. +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Dust and Plasma Wave Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2309.09280
openalex publication_date 2023/09/17 · openalex created_date 2023/09/20 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is generally assumed that ionization in slow collisions of light atomic particles, whose constituents (electrons and nuclei) move with velocities orders of magnitude smaller than the speed of light, is driven solely by the Coulomb force. Here we show, however, that the Breit interaction -- a relativistic correction to the Coulomb interaction between electrons -- can become the main actor when the colliding system couples resonantly to the quantum radiation field. Our results demonstrate that this ionization mechanism can be very efficient in various not too dense physical environments, including stellar plasmas and atomic beams propagating in gases.