Atomic excitation and ionization as the result of inner-shell vacancy creation

The probabilities of atomic excitation and ionization as the result of K-shell and L-subshell vacancy production have been calculated relativistically by the use of the Dirac–Fock–Slater wavefunctions in the sudden approximation. The results indicate that the ionization process is dominant for inner-shell electrons, whereas the excitation process becomes important for outer shells. Comparison with other theoretical calculations and with the experimental data is made.