Continuum x rays produced by light-ion—atom collisions

Radiative processes in light-ion collisions are all-inclusively formulated and discussed. Production cross sections of the radiations are calculated in terms of the second Born approximation. The cross sections of atomic bremsstrahlung production and radiative ionization have been estimated and compared with experimental results of continuum x rays from an A1 target bombarded with few-MeV protons. It is found that atomic bremsstrahlung is the most predominant component in the region of x-ray energy $\hslash \omega \ge T_m$, where $T_m$ is the maximum energy transferred from a projectile to a free electron at rest, and the disagreement between the theory and experiment, which had previously been seen in this energy region, was clearly resolved.