Theoretical investigations of electron emission after water vapour ionization by light ion impact

An ab initio quantum-mechanical treatment is applied for treating the ionization process of water vapour by light ions. In this theoretical model, the initial state of the system is composed of a projectile and a water target described by a plane wave and an accurate one-centre molecular wave function, respectively, whereas the final state is constituted by a slow ejected electron and a scattered projectile represented by a Coulomb wave and a plane wave, respectively. The obtained results are compared to available experimental data in terms of doubly differential cross sections (DDCS), singly differential cross sections (SDCS) and total cross sections (TCS). A good agreement is generally found especially for the SDCS and the TCS.