Theory of Auger Neutralization of Ions at Metal Surfaces

Abstract

The transition rate in the process of ion neutralization via Auger mechanism during scattering from metal surfaces is studied. A unitary transformation is used to transform the second-quantized Hamiltonian of the problem. This gives rise to a new term (the orthogonalization term) in the matrix elements. This is equivalent to orthogonalization of the continuum metal and bound atomic wave functions. The theory is applied to the Auger neutralization of protons scattered from an aluminum surface. The effect of the orthogonalization term is to decrease the transition rate and the neutral fraction especially at small distances from the surface and for low energy ions.