Probing superheavy quasimolecular collisions with incoming inner shell vacancies

With the advanced accelerator technologies used at the SIS/ESR heavy ion facility at GSI, the highest charge states (bare, H-like, etc.) even for the heaviest ions can be provided for experiments at moderate collision velocities (vion < vK). Hence, inner shell vacancies can be provided prior to collisions for the innermost shells of transiently formed superheavy quasimolecules. However, projectile K-vacancies may be destroyed while penetrating solids. The goal of the present investigation is to establish how far at relatively low collision velocities, high incoming ionic charge states do survive in thin solid targets and hence, how far thin solid targets can be utilized for studying superheavy quasimolecules with well-defined, open, incoming, inner shell vacancy channels. The dependence of quasimolecular collisions on projectile charge state (q) and target thickness (t) is studied in very thin Au solid targets for 69 MeV/u Uq+ ions (73 ⩽ q ⩽ 91).