THE BINARY COLLISION APPROXIMATION - BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION

The binary collision approximation (BCA) has long been used in computer simulations of the interactions of energetic atoms with solid targets, as well as being the basis of most analytical theory in this area. While mainly a high-energy approximation, the BCA retains qualitative significance at low energies and, with proper formulation, gives useful quantitative information as well. Moreover, computer simulations based on the BCA can achieve good statistics in many situations where those based on full classical dynamical models require the most advanced computer hardware or are even impracticable. The foundations of the BCA in classical scattering are reviewed, including methods of evaluating the scattering integrals, interaction potentials, and electron excitation effects. The explicit evaluation of time at significant points on particle trajectories is discussed, as are scheduling algorithms for ordering the collisions in a developing cascade. An approximate treatment of nearly simultaneous collisions is outlined and the searching algorithms used in MARLOWE are presented.