AUTHOR=Najjari B. , Zhang S. F. , Ma X. , Voitkiv A. B. 

TITLE=Fragmentation of the 4He2 dimer with the emission of three or four electrons by fast highly charged projectiles

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics

VOLUME=Volume 11 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2023.1145511

DOI=10.3389/fphy.2023.1145511

ISSN=2296-424X

ABSTRACT=We investigate the fragmentation of the helium dimer, $^4$He$_2$,  into  He$^{2+}$ $+$ He$^+$ and He$^{2+}$ $+$ He$^{2+}$ ions in collisions with 
fast highly charged projectiles. We discuss the main physical mechanisms driving these processes. 
We explore the energy and angular distributions of the ionic fragments produced in collisions of the dimer with $1$ GeV/u U$^{92+}$ and $11.37$ MeV/u S$^{14}$ projectiles and also present the total fragmentation cross sections. According to our results, the fragmentation in these collisions 
is fully dominated by the direct removal of three or four electrons from the dimer by the projectile in a single collision. Our results also suggest that 
the total fragmentation cross sections depend on the  the binding energy $ I_{\text He_2}$ of the dimer, being roughly proportional to $ \sqrt{ I_{\text He_2} } $.