Dielectronic recombination of lithium‐like gold

We report measurements on radiative and dielectronic recombination (RR and DR) of very highly charged ions at energies Ecm=0 to 50 eV. Novel techniques were employed at the heavy ion storage ring ESR to obtain absolute recombination rates of Au76+(1s22s). The increase of the RR rate for Ecm→0 could be recorded and single DR resonances in Au75+(1s22p3/26lj) resolved. The experimental data are compared to theoretical results for RR and DR. The calculations for RR are based on the Bethe‐Salpeter approach for completely stripped ions corrected to match Stobbe’s theory and corrected for the presence of several core electrons in the ions studied here. The theoretical RR rates are combined with results for DR from perturbative‐relativistic, semi‐relavistic and fully relativistic theories. There is remarkable agreement between theory and experiment. Nevertheless the high quality of the experimental data allows one to distinguish between the different theoretical approaches to DR.