Double-differential cross sections for single ionization of simple polyatomic molecules by proton impact

A theoretical study of double-differential cross sections (DDCSs) for single ionization of CH4 and NH3 molecules by collision with proton is presented at 0.25, 1, and 2 MeV, respectively. For the final state, we use a continuum distorted wave that contains the product of three-Coulomb distortion due to pairwise Coulombic interactions for which it is called the three-Coulomb wave model. In the entrance channel, the Coulomb distortion between the incoming projectile and the target is taken. In this model, the ground state of the polyatomic molecule is described by means of an accurate one-center molecular wave function, which is a linear combination of atomic orbitals. The contributions of DDCSs for different molecular orbitals of the polyatomic molecules to the spectrum of angular distributions at different electron emission energies have also been analyzed. Generally the preference for ionization depends on the binding energy of the active electron in molecular orbital in the ascending order of loosely bound electrons to more tightly bound electrons. At large ejected electron and projectile energy, the lesser bound electrons in the molecules dominate the DDCS at extreme forward emission angles. The present DDCS results are compared with available experimental and the theoretical findings. In case of ammonia molecules, good agreement is observed at all projectile energies, showing that the present model is sufficient to explain all the experimental data for double-differential cross sections. However, some degree of discrepancy is observed at 2 MeV proton impact for small electron emission angles when CH4 molecular target is considered.