Excitation Dynamics of an Atom due to Heavy Ion Impact in a Laser Field

Abstract

Laser assisted inelastic scattering of heavy ions by alkali atoms is studied theoretically. The non-perturbative quasi-energy method, generalised for many states, is used to describe the laser-atom interaction, and the close coupling method using the impact parameter method is used for scattering calculations. We have calculated the transition probabilities and total cross section for the excitation of alkali atoms, due to simultaneous proton-photon collisions. We show the effect of laser and collision parameters, e.g. laser intensity, impact parameter, laser frequency, on the excitation process.