Ion-induced monopole transitions in atoms: a different approach within the semiclassical approximation

Abstract
The atomic Coulomb excitation or ionisation by slow heavy particles is treated in the framework of the semiclassical approximation. A different approach is adopted which avoids the explicit calculation of the atomic form factors and greatly simplifies the computation of monopole transitions. This formalism is applied to the calculation of an analytical expression for the K-shell Coulomb deflection factor assuming a hyperbolic orbit for the projectile. This expression agrees well with previously reported numerical results.