Electronic stopping power in liquid water for protons and α particles from first principles

Abstract

Atomistic calculations of the electronic stopping power in liquid water for protons and \ensuremath{\alpha} particles from first principles are demonstrated without relying on linear response theory. The computational approach is based on nonequilibrium simulation of the electronic response using real-time time-dependent density functional theory. By quantifying the velocity dependence of the steady-state charge of the projectile proton and \ensuremath{\alpha} particle from nonequilibrium electron densities, we examine the extent to which linear response theory is applicable. We further assess the influence of the exchange-correlation approximation in real-time time-dependent density functional theory on the stopping power with range-separated and regular hybrid functionals with exact exchange.