Classical dynamics of electron and positron impact processes

Abstract

The classical dynamics of electron and positron scattering by a hydrogen target is studied for a wide range of energies. The three-body system is integrated numerically using a regularising transformation which eliminates the Coulomb singularities of the two-body interactions. The classical mechanism of ionization is studied and some comparisons with quantum dynamics are given. Cross sections are obtained using Monte Carlo calculations with uniformly distributed initial conditions of the bound orbits. Good agreement between our classical numerical calculations and experimental results is found for total ionization cross sections, for both electron and positron scattering.