The effects of Heisenberg constraint on the classical cross sections in proton hydrogen collision

Abstract

Abstract The interaction between a proton and a ground state hydrogen atom is studied using a standard three-body classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) and a quasi-classical trajectory Monte Carlo (QCTMC) model where the quantum feature of the collision system is mimicked using the model potential in the Hamiltonian as was proposed by Kirschbaum and Wilets (1980 Phys. Rev. A 21 834). The influence of the choice of the model potential parameters (α, ξ) on the initial radial and momentum distribution of the electron are analyzed and optimized. We found that although these distributions may not be as close to the quantum results as the distribution of standard CTMC results, we can find the combination of the (α, ξ) where the calculated cross sections are closer to the experimental data and closer to the results obtained quantum mechanically. We show that the choice of 3 < α < 5 is reasonable. To validate our observation, we present cross sections for ionization, excitation, charge exchange (CX), and state selective CX to the projectile bound state. Calculations are carried out in the projectile energy range between 10 and 1000 keV amu−1.