Fragmentation dynamics inside helium nanodroplets: new theoretical results

We present a theoretical study on the effect of a helium nanodroplet environment on the fragmentation dynamics of embedded rare gas cluster ions. The helium atoms are treated explicitly, with zero-point effects taken into account through an effective helium-helium interaction potential. All the nonadiabatic effects between electronic states of the ionized rare gas cluster are taken into account. Our results reveal new mechanisms for the cooling by helium, and show that the dopant can be ejected from the helium droplet. These results will be presented and discussed.