Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 367
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50574-7

Regular Article

Relativistic theory for radiative forward electron emission in heavy ion-atom encounters

¹ Mathematics Institute, University of Munich, 80333 Munich, Germany
² Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany
³ Helmholtz Institute Jena, 07743 Jena, Germany
⁴ Center for Advanced Studies, St. Petersburg State Polytechnical University, 195251 St. Petersburg, Russia

^a e-mail: a.surzhykov@gsi.de

Received: 1 August 2014
Received in final form: 6 October 2014
Published online: 4 December 2014

Abstract

The forward electron emission with simultaneous photon production during the scattering of relativistic, highly stripped projectiles from light target atoms is calculated within the Dirac theory. The method of calculation is a simplification of the impulse approximation and is based on the relation of the cross section for radiative capture to continuum of loosely bound electrons to the frame-transformed electron bremsstrahlung cross section. It is demonstrated that such an approximation is well justified in a large region of energies and photon emission angles, with the exception of the extreme forward and backward emission and the soft-photon energy limit. The cusp spectrum and the corresponding angular distribution are compared to recent experimental data for the collision system 90.38 MeV/amu U^{88 +} + N₂.