In a loss mechanism reaction both projectile and target lose an electron. The COLTRIMS (cold target recoil ion momentum spectroscopy) technology allows us to separate experimentally the contribution of two interactions: the projectile electron - target electron (ee) interaction and the projectile electron - target nucleus (en) interaction, both leading to the ionization of the projectile. In the ee process the projectile electron is knocked out by an interaction with the target electron, while in the en process it is ionized by an interaction with the target nucleus. Depending on the impact energy one of these two processes dominates. Both electron-loss processes are separated in momentum space.

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