Effective Strength of the Electron-Electron Interaction in Simultaneous Projectile and Target Ionization

Abstract

The determination of the right balance between the strong-field interaction of the screened target nucleus and the two-center electron-electron interaction has been controversial since the early attempts to describe the stripping of light, swift ions, by heavy targets. In this work, we find a region of influence for the electron-electron contribution which clearly indicates that this interaction is an essential contribution to the stripping process for both light and heavy targets.