In order to efficiently apply the local density approximation it is necessary
to derive an effective charge for the particle passing through matter. This
effective charge is correlated but not equivalent to the actual charge of the
particle which looses some its electrons by the interaction with the target
atoms. An expression (3.121) for the effective ionization
was derived by Brandt and Kitagawa [13] for an ion with a definite
ionization
(Z is the core charge of the ion and N is the
number of electrons) passing through an electron gas.
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(3.120) |
To determine the ionization of an ion which depends on the ion velocity
a stripping criteria for electrons must be applied.
In [90] an empirical velocity stripping criterion is proposed based on the assumption that all electrons with a velocity below the ion velocity are stripped. Applying this criterion the ionization is determined by
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(3.122) |
![]() |
(3.123) |
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(3.124) |
An alternative energy stripping criterion is presented in [57] which
is supposed to yield better results especially for higher ion velocities (). This criterion looks for the smallest number of bound electrons
so that
, where
is the total ion energy (sum of potential energy
and kinetic energy of the electrons). Using the energy definition of the
Brandt-Kitagawa model the ionization is determined by
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(3.125) |
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