Abstract:
Ionization and fragmentation of water and uracil molecules was studied both by electron and proton impact. A special coincidence technique allows on an event by event basis the investigation of product ions formed upon the collision of protons with neutral molecules including the identification of the charge state of the projectile. This enables the characterization of the ionization processes occurring, i.e. direct ionization, single electron capture or double electron capture for 0, 1 or 2 electrons that are transferred from the target to the projectile, respectively. For uracil the fragmentation patterns obtained by electron and proton impact ionization reveal close similarities and indicate a comparable amount of excitation for the two different ionization mechanisms at high enough projectile energies.
Similar content being viewed by others
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Received 25 February 2002 Published online 13 September 2002
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coupier, B., Farizon, B., Farizon, M. et al. Inelastic interactions of protons and electrons with biologically relevant molecules. Eur. Phys. J. D 20, 459–468 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2002-00166-3
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2002-00166-3