Study of low energy ion-atom collisions using a magneto-optical trap

A magneto-optical trap (MOT) has been coupled to a recoil-ion momentum spectrometer to study the charge exchange process in Na+ +87Rb collisions in the keV impact energy range. The relative cross sections of the active charge exchange channels and the associated distributions in scattering angle were measured with a high precision. They provide a very detailed test of theoretical calculations.