A setup for probing collisions of highly charged ions with liquid droplets

We describe the design and implementation of an experimental setup for investigating the collisions of highly charged ions (HCI) with liquid droplets. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the feasibility of such experiments, since studies on HCI-droplet interactions were hitherto precluded following design constraints. Visible, UV, and x-ray emissions from the collisional interaction of liquid droplets with HCI is reported here. The preliminary results from our experiment strongly suggest that charge-exchange appears to be a dominant process. In light of the recent investigations and reports on x-ray and extreme ultraviolet emissions from comets due to solar-wind interaction with cometary coma, our experiment suggests that liquid droplet-HCI interaction might mimic the astrophysical processes, and are promising candidates for laboratory simulations of such processes. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics