Hartree-Slater calculation of the cross section for L -shell ionization of argon by simple heavy charged particles

The cross sections for L-shell and subshell ionization by direct Coulomb excitation of argon by incident heavy charged particles are evaluated. Incident particles are described in the plane-wave Born approximation, and nonrelativistic Hartree-Slater (HS) wave functions are used for the atomic electrons. Form factors, energy distributions, and ionization cross sections are compared with those obtained from screened hydrogenic wave functions. At most incident energies the HS results for the total ionization cross section are only slightly smaller than those obtained with screened hydrogenic wave functions, but considerable discrepancies are found for form factors and energy distributions near the ionization threshold.