On the projectile-electron loss in fast collisions with heavy atomic targets

The projectile-electron excitation and loss processes are considered in collisions with heavy atomic targets in the intermediate-to-high-velocity regime. In order to describe these processes we use the sudden and Glauber approximations. We show that these approximations lead to the same results for electronic cross sections. We estimated cross sections for the total loss from H and He+ projectiles. Our results favour the interpretation of the total electron loss as a process where the projectile-electron interaction with the screened heavy target nucleus dominates over the antiscreening mode. (author)