Differential cross section for elastic collision, first exited state and ionization of water molecule

TL;DR

This paper uses quantum mechanics to calculate the differential cross sections for elastic, excited, and ionization collisions of water molecules with electrons and protons, revealing angular dependence and interference effects.

Contribution

It provides the first theoretical quantum mechanical calculations of differential cross sections for water molecule interactions with electrons and protons, including ionization to form OH^-.

Findings

Angular dependence of scattering cross sections

Interference phenomena between incident and deflected waves

Differential cross sections for ionization to produce OH^-

Abstract

The radiolysis of water is an important study in microdosimetry, one of the resulting and important molecules in this study is the $OH^-$. Theoretical quantum mechanics calculations are used to obtain the differential cross section for the elastic collision, first excited state and ionization of water molecule. For the ionization case, obtaining $OH^-$ is studied. As incident particles are considered electrons and protons, independently for each phenomena previously mentioned. The differential cross section was obtained by the amplitude function. The water molecule model used to calculations consisted by the two protons of the hydrogen atom that make up the water molecule and the structure-less and doubly charged oxygen. For the proton incident particle case, the identical particle analysis was used. The results show the angular dependence and therefore the interference phenomenon between the incident wave and the deflected wave