Structure and Dynamics of Negative Ions

This report describes progress made during the final three-year grant period 1997-2000. During this period, we experimentally investigated the structure and dynamics of negative ions by detaching the outermost electron in controlled processes induced by photon-, electron- and heavy particle-impact. In this manner we studied, at a fundamental level, the role of electron correlation in the structure and dynamics of simple, few-particle atomic systems. Our measurements have provided sensitive tests of the ability of theory to go beyond the independent electron model