Charge-exchange-driven X-ray emission from highly ionized plasma jets

The interaction of highly ionized laser-produced plasma jets with gases has been studied with X-ray microscopic methods. Simultaneous high spectral and 2-dimensional spatial resolution provided a detailed topological structure of the counter-propagating plasma and discovered a gas pressure-dependent X-ray emission structure inside the jets of H-like and He-like aluminum ions. At larger distances from the target, anomalous high (3 orders of magnitude) intensities of Li-like intercombination transitions from double excited states have been identified. Charge-exchange-driven cascading in autoionizing states is proposed to explain the experimental findings.