Classical scattering and fragmentation of clusters of ions in helical confinement

Abstract

We explore the scattering dynamics of classical Coulomb-interacting clusters of ions confined to a helical geometry. Ion clusters of equally charged particles constrained to a helix can form many-body bound states, i.e. they exhibit stable motion of Coulomb-interacting identical ions. We analyze the scattering and fragmentation behavior of two ion clusters, thereby understanding the rich phenomenology of their dynamics. The scattering dynamics is complex in the sense that it exhibits cascades of decay processes involving strongly varying cluster sizes. These processes are governed by the internal energy flow and the underlying oscillatory many-body potential. We specifically focus on the impact of the collision energy on the dynamics of individual ions during and immediately after the collision of two clusters, and on the internal dynamics of ion clusters that are excited during a cluster collision.