Recent Activities at the Merged-Beams Apparatus at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The merged-beams apparatus at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been a successful technique for measuring the absolute cross sections of charge transfer from bare ions to atomic hydrogen, including recently results of N7+ and O7+ on atomic H [1]. The technique was also used to explore for the first time the fundamental system H₂⁺ + H at low energy where vibrational effects were expected [2]. In addition, a cryogenic micro-calorimeter has been installed on the apparatus to study X-ray emission from charge transfer of solar wind ions interacting with He, H₂, etc [3].

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory Multi-Charged Ion Research Facility, including the merged-beams apparatus was recently moved to another building. A high-resolution quantum calorimeter is being reconfigured to measure charge transfer with atomic H, the most abundant element in the cosmos. In this talk, we are reporting the latest activities to prepare for this new high-resolution X-ray measurements from charge transfer between H and highly charged ions.