Electron impact single ionization of hydrogen molecule by twisted electron beam

TL;DR

This paper investigates how twisted electron beams influence the ionization process of molecular hydrogen, revealing the effects of orbital angular momentum and beam opening angle on differential cross sections.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism within the first Born approximation for (e,2e) processes using twisted electron beams and compares results with plane wave impacts, highlighting new interference effects.

Findings

Twisted electron beams significantly alter angular profiles of differential cross sections.

Orbital angular momentum (m) affects the interference patterns in ionization.

The opening angle of the twisted beam influences the triple differential cross section.

Abstract

In this communication, we present the results of the Five-fold Differential Cross Section (5DCS) and Triple Differential Cross Section (TDCS) for the (e,2e) process on molecular hydrogen ($H_2$) by the plane wave and the twisted electron beam impact. The formalism is developed within the first Born approximation using the plane wave and the twisted wave for the incident electron beam. We describe the plane wave, Heitler-London type wave function and Coulomb wave for the scattered electron, $H_2$ molecular state, and the ejected electron respectively. We compare the angular profiles of the 5DCS and TDCS for the different values of Orbital Angular Momentum (OAM) number {\it m} of the twisted electron beam with that of the plane wave beam. We also present the 5DCS for different molecular orientations and study the effect of {\it m} on the 5DCS. We further investigate the influence of the twisted electron beam on the (e,2e) process on the $H_2$ molecule from the perspective of the "Young-type" interference of the scattered waves, emanating from the two atomic centers of the $H_2$ molecule. We also study the TDCS for macroscopic $H_2$ target to explore the effect of opening angle ($\theta_p$) of the twisted electron beam on the TDCS. Our results clearly show the effect of the twisted electron's OAM number (m) and the opening angle ($\theta_p$) on the 5DCS and TDCS of the molecular hydrogen.