Electron impact ionization measurements at the Heidelberg heavy ion storage ring TSR

Reliable rate coefficients are needed in order to model the charge state distributions (CSDs) of astrophysical plasmas. We are carrying out electron impact ionization (EII) measurements for astrophysically important ions using the heavy ion Test Storage Ring (TSR) at the Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. These storage ring measurements provide unambiguous data from essentially pure ground-state ion beams.