Electron capture by bare projectiles from multi-electron targets

Inner-shell electron capture processes in ion-atom collisions are of great interest both in developing basic theory and in various practical applications. Single-electron capture from the K-shell of multi-electron atomic targets (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, neon and argon) by bare projectiles (the nuclei of H, He and Li) at intermediate and high-impact energies is studied theoretically. We use the three- and four-body boundary-corrected continuum intermediate state (BCIS-3B, BCIS-4B) methods. Thorough comparisons of the obtained K-shell capture cross-sections with the associated experimentally measured data are carried out. Overall good agreement is recorded in the intermediate and high-energy region. By way of an example, the BCIS-4B method gives practically the same shape and magnitudes of total cross sections measured from 200 to 2000 keV for the p-C collisions, thus, covering the entire energy region of interest, including the Massey peak. Such features are of notable interest not only in atomic collision physics, but also in a number of other branches associated with accelerator-based physics. For example, in hadron therapy, most energy losses of light and heavy nuclei traversing matter occur within the Massey peak (also known as the Bragg peak when cross sections are plotted as a function of the reciprocal of the impact energy). (authors)