EVIDENCE FOR ELECTRON CORRELATION DURING DOUBLE CAPTURE IN FAST (UPSILON-APPROXIMATELY-10-AU) COLLISIONS

Two-electron capture involving simultaneous transfer of an electron to the continuum (or to a Rydberg state) and a bound state has been investigated for collisions of 3.5 MeV/u Ne/sup 10+/ with He, Ne, and Ar targets. The extent of this double capture to nonequivalent electron configurations is found to exceed expectations of the independent-particle model suggesting that electron correlation may contribute significantly to two-electron capture even in fast (vapprox.10 a.u.) collisions.