Single ionization of helium by fast proton impact in different kinematical regimes

Abstract

We present ultrahigh-resolution data on fully differential cross sections for single ionization of helium induced by 1 MeV proton impact. In the present work we explore a different regime of kinematic conditions in terms of momentum transfer and electron energies than previously published data. These data are compared with different theoretical calculations. Reasonable agreement between the first Born approximation and experiment is obtained in the kinematic regime close to the Bethe ridge. Far from this region the calculated binary peak is shifted with respect to experiment. In order to resolve this problem, we analyze several theoretical mechanisms beyond the customary first Born approximation theory. These mechanisms include the 3C model (three Coulomb functions), effective charges, off-shell pair $T$ matrices instead of pair potentials, and semiclassical postcollision interaction. We find that a combination of the 3C model with a semiclassical postcollision interaction effect may explain the observed discrepancy.