Attachment

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Attachment

The process in which two particles collide and stick together forming a single complex particle. The most common attachment process is the formation of a negative ion from electron attachment to an atom or molecule. Some negative ions are unstable, however, and cannot survive.
The usual measure for this process is the attachment coefficient, which on the average is the fraction of a large number of collisions that result in attachment. Typical values of this fraction run from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 1,000.

References

This article is based on NASA's Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use