Electron impact ionization of water molecule

In the present paper, differential and total cross sections are calculated for the interaction of electrons with a water molecule. The calculations are performed in the distorted wave Born approximation framework where the incident and scattered (fast) electrons are described by a plane wave function, whereas the ejected (slow) electron is described by a distorted wave function. From the fivefold differential cross sections, triply and singly differential cross sections have been calculated by successive integrations. In these conditions, very good agreement is found with available experimental measurements essentially limited to triply and singly ionization cross sections. Finally, a comparison of our results with a large set of experimental data of total ionization cross sections exhibits very good agreement. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.