Asymptotic energy dependence of projectile excitation in relativistic ion-atom collisions -: art. no. 022705

The Coulomb excitation of inner-shell electrons around heavy and highly charged projectile ions impinging on light targets is investigated in the highly relativistic energy regime for projectiles as heavy as gold (Z=79). First-order time-dependent perturbation theory is employed for treating the interaction of the active electron with the light target, and exact relativistic Coulomb-Dirac wave functions are used for the description of electronic states in the strong field of the projectile nucleus. The energy dependence of transition probabilities and partial cross sections is studied up to extreme relativistic energies of hundreds of GeV/u and beyond. An analytic representation of the asymptotic energy dependence of the projectile excitation cross section complements the numerically calculated impact-parameter-dependent probabilities and cross sections, providing additional insights.