Energetic proton-impact single ionization of hydrogen molecules

A two-effective-center approximation with two Coulomb wave functions is applied to calculate the fully differential cross-sections for fast proton-impact single ionization of hydrogen molecules. The approximation satisfies the correct boundary conditions in the entrance channel. For each of the effective scatterer centers, two Coulomb waves representing the propagation of the projectile and the ejected electron in the field of the residual unscreened core are included in the final continuum state for the ionized system that is considered. Only the direct partial amplitudes are calculated and the indirect partial amplitudes are included in the formalism using a normalization procedure. Overall, the predictions and the available experimental values are found to be in good agreement.