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Contact Information
Tel:972-8-9344537
Fax:972-8-9344166
Bldg.:K.B. Weissman Institute of Physical
Sciences
Rm.: 1106
Email: daniel.zajfman@ weizmann.ac.il
Home page:
Secretariat:
Corinne Hasdai
Tel :972-8-9343835
Email: corinne.hasdai@ weizmann.ac.il
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Daniel Zajfman
Professor
Department of Particle Physics
Weizmann Institute,
76100 Rehovot,
Israel
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Current Research Interests
My actual research interests are centered
around the Physics of
simple molecular ions. Simple molecular ions
are very adequate not
only for the study of few particles quantum
system, but they have
their own importance in nature, in environment
such as interstellar
molecular clouds, planetary ionospheres and
laboratory plasma.
One of the major problem in the
experimental study of reactions
involving molecular ion is the definition
of the initial quantum state of the system.
Because of the many
internal degrees of freedom, cold molecular
ions are hard to produce
in laboratory. During the last few years, we
have developed a
technique using long time storage of ions,
where cold ions can be
produced by radiative relaxation of the
internal degrees of
freedom. Using the Test Storage Ring, located
at the
Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg, and a new type of ion trap
developed at the Weizmann Institute, we have
succeed to study the
fragmentation pattern of many molecular ions.
Even for the simplest
hydrogen molecular ions, we have found that
our understanding of
the dissociation of such a simple system is
not perfect.
Using three-dimensional imaging
technique,
we have produced state-to-state data which
allows direct comparison with
theoretical calculations.
On the astrophysical side, we have made the
first experiment where the
production of water molecule was identified
from the recombination of
Hydronium. The production of water in
interstellar molecular clouds is
of high importance, for the understanding of
star formation in the
early stage of clouds collapse. Using the
storage-ring technique, we
have demonstrated and quantify the reaction
rate for water production
in such environment.
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