INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ON PARTICLE COLLISIONS AND QUANTITATIVE SPECTROSCOPY – serie

This book is based upon a part of the invited and contributing talks at the 25th International Symposium on Ion-Atom Collisions, ISIAC (biennial), held on July 23–25, 2017 in Palm Cove, Queensland, Australia. To aid the general reader, all the authors tried to present their chapters in the context of the development of the addressed particular themes and the underlying major ideas and intricacies. Some chapters contain new results that have not been previously published elsewhere. Whenever possible, the authors made their attempts to connect the basic research in atomic and molecular collision physics with some important applications in other branches of physics as well as across the physics borders. It is hoped that the material presented in this book will be interesting and useful to the beginners and specialists alike. The contents and expositions are deemed to be helpful to the beginners in assessing the potential overlap of some of the presented material with their own research themes and this might provide motivations for possible further upgrades. Likewise, specialists could take advantage of these reviews to see where the addressed themes were and where they are going, in order to acknowledge the fruits of the efforts made thus far and actively contribute to tailoring the directions of future research. Overall, this book is truly interdisciplinary. It judiciously combines experiments and theories within particle collision physics on atomic and molecular levels. It presents state-of-the-art fundamental research in this field. It addresses the possibilities for significant and versatile applications outside standard atomic and molecular collision physics ranging from astrophysics, surface as well as cluster physics/chemistry, hadron therapy in medicine and to the chemical industry. It is then, as Volume 2, fully in the spirit of the "Aims and Scope" of this book series by reference to its "Mission Statement".

The principal goal of this book is to provide state-of-the-art coverage of the non-relativistic three- and four-body theories at intermediate and high energy ion-atom and ion-molecule collisions. The focus is on the most frequently studied processes: electron capture, ionization, transfer excitation and transfer ionization. The content is suitable both for graduate students and experienced researchers. For these collisions, the literature has seen enormous renewal of activity in the development and applications of quantum-mechanical theories. This subject is of relevance in several branches of science and technology, like accelerator-based physics, the search for new sources of energy and high temperature fusion of light ions. Other important applications are in life sciences via medicine, where high-energy ion beams are used in radiotherapy for which a number of storage ring accelerators are in full operation, under construction or planned to be built worldwide. Therefore, it is necessary to review this field for its most recent advances with an emphasis on the prospects for multidisciplinary applications.