The physics of highly charged ions has become an essential ingredient of many modern research fields, such as x-ray astronomy and astrophysics, con trolled thermonuclear fusion, heavy ion nuclear physics, charged particle ac celerator physics, beam-foil spectroscopy, creation of xuv and x-ray lasers, etc. A broad spectrum of phenomena in high-temperature laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, as well as many aspects of their global physical state and behaviour, are directly influenced, and often fully determined, by the structure and collision properties of multiply charged ions. The growth of in terest in the physics of highly charged ions, experienced especially in the last ten to fifteen years, has stimulated a dramatic increase in research activity in this field and resulted in numerous significant achievements of both fun damental and practical importance. This book is devoted to the basic aspects of the physics of highly charged ions. Its principal aim is to provide a basis for understanding the structure and spectra of these ions, as well as their interactions with other atomic par ticles (electrons, ions, atoms and molecules). Particular attention is paid to the presentation of theoretical methods for the description of different radi ative and collision phenomena involving multiply charged ions. The exper imental material is included only to illustrate the validity of theoretical methods or to demonstrate those physical phenomena for which adequate theoretical descriptions are still absent. The general principles of atomic spectroscopy are included to the extent to which they are pertinent to the subject matter."

This book aims to give a comprehensive view on the present status of a tremendously fast-developing field - the quantum dynamics of fragmenting many-particle Coulomb systems. In striking contrast to the profound theo retical knowledge, achieved from extremely precise experimental results on the static atomic and molecular structure, it was only three years ago when the three-body fundamental dynamical problem of breaking up the hydro gen atom by electron impact was claimed to be solved in a mathematically consistent way. Until now, more "complicated," though still fundamental scenarios, ad dressing the complete fragmentation of the "simplest" many-electron system, the helium atom, under the action of a time-dependent external force, have withstood any consistent theoretical description. Exceptions are the most "trivial" situations where the breakup is induced by the impact of a single real photon or of a virtual photon under a perturbation caused by fast, low charged particle impact. Similarly, the dissociation of the "simplest" molecu lar systems like Ht or HD+, fragmentating in collisions with slow electrons, or the H3 molecule breaking apart into two or three" pieces" as a result of a single laser-photon excitation, establish a major challenge for state-of-the-art theoretical approaches."

This title is a comprehensive collection of atomic characteristics of highly charged ion sources and elementary processes related to X-ray radiation: energy levels, wavelengths, transition probabilities, cross sections and rate coefficients. Many figures, tables, simple formulas and scaling laws accompany the text wherever possible.

This is the first comprehensive treatment of the interactions of atoms and molecules with charged particles, photons and laser fields. Addressing the subject from a unified viewpoint, the volume reflects our present understanding of many-particle dynamics in rearrangement and fragmentation reactions such as electron capture, target and projectile ionisation, photoabsorption and Compton scattering, collisional breakup in Coulomb systems, and dissociative ionisation. The individual chapters, each written by leading experts, give a concise picture of the advanced experimental and theoretical methods. The book also describes experimental methods such as recoil-ion momentum spectroscopy (RIMS), electron microscopy (REMI), and many-particle time-of-flight and imaging techniques. Theoretical approaches treated include the three-body Coulomb problem, R- and S-matrix as well as classical approaches, close-coupling methods, and density-functional theory.

The physics of highly charged ions continues to be one of the most active and interesting fields of atomic physics. A large fraction of the characteristic radiation of such ions lies in the x-ray region and its spectroscopy represents an important experimental tool. The field of x-ray spectroscopy grew directly from the discovery of x radiation by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in 1895. The early contributions to atomic physics that arose out of x-ray spectroscopy are well documented and are the subject of many centennial events. In the past, the gross features of most x-ray spectra in the hard x-ray region have been accounted for on a hydrogenic model. In many instances the gross spectral features recorded in the early days of x-ray physics match those observed with state-of-the-art techniques today and many of the early qualitative - terpretations have remained unchanged. It is in the details of the spectra that today's results are superior to those obtained many years ago, and it is in the quantitative and accurate - scriptions that today's predictions are better. A rejuvenation of the field has occurred after the great achievements in the development of new ion sources for production of heavy ions with only one or few electrons. The new tools available to the experimenter allow the exploration of new states of m- ter and allow us to challenge new frontiers in our theoretical understanding of atoms and their interactions with other particles.

Atoms and Their Spectroscopic Properties has been designed as a reference on atomic constants and elementary processes involving atoms. The topics include energy levels, Lamb shifts, electric multipole polarizabilities, oscillator strengths, transition probabilites, and charge transfer cross sections. In addition the subjects of ionization, photoionization, and excitation are discussed. The book also comprises a large number of figures and tables, with ample references. Simple analytical formulas allow one to estimate the atomic characteristics without resorting to a computer.

Reference Data on Multicharged Ions summarizes spectroscopic and collisional atomic data for highly charged positive ions: oscillator strength, energy levels, transition probabilities, cross sections and rate coefficients of different elementary processes taking place in hot plasmas.
The book does not give complicated theory and formulas; it presents the data in abbreviated form using tables, figures and, if possible, scaling laws for different characteristics. The data is interpreted on physical grounds, and ample references are given to the original literature.