Sturmian theory of electron energy distributions in low energy ion–atom collisions

Abstract

The energy and angular distributions of electrons ejected from targets and projectiles in the collisions of slow H and H− with He targets has been calculated exactly in a model that treats electron interactions with neutral targets via zero-range interactions. These calculations employ two-center Sturmian functions for collisions at non-zero impact parameters. The computed distributions are compared with recent measurements for He targets. Total ionization cross sections are also computed and compared with experiment over a broad energy range for proton, alpha particle and neutral hydrogen impact on helium atoms. The calculations are in generally good agreement with experiment.