Ionization of molecules by electron impact: Differential and total cross sections

摘要

The first Born approximation is applied to calculate differential and total ionization cross sections of a set of small molecules, namely, HF, H_2O, NH_3 and CH_4 by electron impact. The molecular targets are described by single center molecular orbitals consisting of linear combinations of atomic orbitals (MO-LCAO). First, we have considered electron momentum spectroscopy experiments to check the accuracy of the wave functions. The triply, doubly, singly differential and total cross sections are then evaluated in a systematic way for a variety of kinematics. The results are discussed and compared with experiments.