Absolute cross sections for single and multiple charge exchange in Feq+ impacting on CO, CO2 and H2O

We report measured absolute single and multiple charge-exchange cross sections for Feq+ ions colliding with CO, CO2 and H2O. A retarding-field method is used in two different approaches for charge-state analysis of the ion beam after traversing the stationary target gas cell. The projectile energy is 7q keV. This corresponds to a range of ion velocities of 350 km s−1 for q = 5, to 560 km s−1 for q = 13. This is comparable to solar wind velocities for understanding charge exchange of solar wind ions with cometary neutrals, leading to X-ray emission from the ions.