Thesis Abstract
A Distorted Wave Born 1 approximation is used to model the process of
electron impact ionisation of hydrogen at low energy. Our aim is
to exploit a rigorous classical description of post-collision
interaction effects between the two continuum electrons in order
to arrive at a quantum mechanical treatment. The equations of
classical mechanics make it possible to calculate classical
trajectories of the two final state electrons. Our model neglects
no terms and notably takes into account the angular components of
the forces acting on the electrons. Distorsion potentials are
deduced from the trajectories of the electrons and are introduced
into a quantum mechanical calculation in order to obtain the
distorted wave functions of the two final state electrons. The
initial state is described using a distorted wave for the incident
electron and a polarised target orbital. We obtain triple
differential cross-sections which are compared to the available
experimental data for ionisation of hydrogen in the energy sharing
case. We observe an important improvement with respect to a
standard Distorted Wave Born 1 model: the positions of the peaks
become either completely accurate or are shifted considerably
towards those of the experimental peaks. The method is capable of
extention without problems to other kinematics and to other targets.
