Quasiclassical approach to the interpretation of the Barkas effect

Abstract

A correction to the Bohr formula making it possible to explain the difference between the stopping powers of positively and negatively charged particles (the Barkas effect) is obtained in the quasiclassical approximation taking into account the difference between electron motion in a hydrogen atom as a function of the charge sign of the moving particle. The influence on the atomic electron of the moving particle leads to a change in the contribution of the adiabatic interaction, in the case of which the energy is not transferred in the majority of collisions, which is the reason for a decrease in the energy losses of slow particles compared with Bohr theory. The results of calculations show that the energy losses per path length unit can be represented in the form of the product of two functions, namely, the energy loss function (in accordance with Bohr theory) and the dynamic function taking into account corrections related to correction of the electron position in the target atom during the collision. Calculations carried out within the framework of classical dynamics make it possible to qualitatively estimate differences between the interaction of protons and antiprotons with target material atoms.