Electron momentum spectroscopy experiments and calculations for the production of excited states of He+ and H-2(+)

The (e,2e) cross-section for transitions to the n = 2 final state of He+ and the 2s sigma, final state of H-2(+) have been measured, relative to thr cross-section for the transitions to the respective ground state ions, using a highly sensitive momentum dispersive multichannel electron momentum spectrometer. The experimental results for He are compared with plane wave impulse approximation (PWIA) cross-section calculations carried out using two previously published CI wavefunctions and also with two cross-section calculations based on explicitly correlated wavefunctions with energy errors of less than 10 nHartree. The H-2 results an compared with calculations by J.W. Liu and V.H. Smith Jr. (Phys. Rev. A, 31, 3003 (1985); erratum: Phys. Rev. A, 39, 3703 (1989)). For both He and H-2, significant differences are observed between the measured relative cross-sections and those calculated using the PWIA. While the measurements for He differ from previous work, the results for H-2 are consistent with some earlier measurements.