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

The first Born approximation is applied to calculate differential and total ionization cross sections of a set of small molecules, namely, HF, H2O, NH3 and CH4 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.