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-...

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.

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.

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...

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...