Collisional stopping considering the induced potential created by ions in a free-electron gas

The wake potential induced by heavy ions in a free-electron gas is used as the interacting potential in the binary collisional formalism (BCF). Detailed results are presented for the stopping power, energy-loss distributions, mean free path, and electron angular distributions. The results were compared with those obtained with the Yukawa central potential and the dielectric formalism on equal footing. A link between the dielectric and binary collision formalisms was established. The BCF was found to be very sensitive with respect to the dielectric function used in the wake potential. Dressed projectiles are also examined, and their distributions compared. The binary formalism is found to be well behaved. At high impact velocities, as expected, it provides only the collisional term, missing the excitation of collective mode. [S1050-2947(98)11609-8].