Recombination of U 92 + ions with electrons

Recombination of fully stripped U⁹²⁺ ions with electrons has been investigated at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) in Darmstadt. Absolute recombination rate coefficients have been measured for relative energies from 0 to 33 eV. For energies greater than 20 meV the experimental result is well described by the theory for radiative recombination (RR). Below 20 meV the experimental rate increasingly exceeds the RR calculation as observed previously in the recombination of light bare ions as well as of Bi⁸³⁺. This low-energy rate enhancement is shown to scale as Z^2.6 for bare ions, where Z is the atomic number of the ion. The U⁹²⁺ recombination rate enhancement is insensitive to changes of the electron density. Variation of the magnetic guiding field strength from 80 mT to 120 mT resulted in oscillations of the recombination rate at 0 eV. The oscillations are partly attributed to changes of the transverse electron temperature accompanying the change of the magnetic guiding field strength; partly they may be caused by uncompensated small changes of the interaction angle between the two beams. Received 1st March 2001 and Received in final form 20 April 2001