  Diagnostics of the carbon atoms, ions, and clusters sputtered from a graphite
surface under 10 keV Xe ion bombardments reveals the presence of neutral carbon
clusters and positively charged species in the photo-emission spectra. The
observed absence of the positively charged clusters in the mass spectra by a
velocity analyzer is supplemented by the presence of the negatively charged
monatomic, diatomic, triatomic and quatratomic clusters.. The velocity spectra
are dominated by the negative C1, C2, C3 and C4. The latter two are observed
having much reduced peak intensities . These results may help us to understand
the contribution of neutral and charged species in the heavy-ion sputtering of
graphite and the energetics of soot formation. Xe is chosen being the heaviest
noble gas ion irradiating at not too high energy i.e 10 keV.
