Influence of magnetic fields on electron-ion recombination at very low energies

Radiative recombination (inverse photoionization) is believed to be well understood since the beginning of quantum mechanics. Still, modern experiments consistently reveal excess recombination rates at very low electron-ion center-of-mass energies. In a detailed study on recombination of F and C ions with magnetically guided electrons we explored the yet unexplained rate enhancement, its dependence on the magnetic field B, the electron density n(e), and the beam temperatures T-perpendicular to and T-parallel to. The excess scales as T-perpendicular to(-1/2) and, surprisingly, as T-parallel to(-1/2), increases strongly with B, and is insensitive to n(e). This puts strong constraints on explanations of the enhancement.