Effects of external field on elastic electron–ion collision in a plasma

Abstract

The field effects on elastic electron–ion collision are investigated in a plasma with the presence of the external field. The eikonal method and effective interaction potential including the far-field term caused by the external field is employed to obtain the eikonal phase shift and eikonal cross section as functions of the field strength, external frequency, impact parameter, collision energy, thermal energy and Debye length. The result shows that the effect of the external field on the eikonal cross section is given by the second-order eikonal phase. In addition, the external field effects suppress the eikonal cross section as well as eikonal phase for the elastic electron–ion collision. The eikonal phase and cross section are found to be increased with an increase of the frequency of the external field. It is also shown that the eikonal cross section increases with an increase of the thermal energy and Debye length.