Energy loss and straggling of slow ions in electron gas

Results of calculations of the electronic energy loss and the straggling for slow ions in the degenerate electron gas are reported. The Hartree-Fock-Slater (HFS) description of the ion (few bound electrons) and the density function formalism (many electrons) together with the dielectric function method were used. The stopping and straggling effective charges Zef for the energy loss were analysed and they were found to differ from each other and to depend on the one electron radius rs, on the projectile atomic number Zi and on the number of electrons Ni carried by the ion. Results of calculations were compared with available experimental data and a good agreement was found