The formal theory of atomic ionization by electron impact relates the breakup amplitude to an integral expression involving the exact wave function and an unperturbed final state that contains two Coulomb functions with effective, noninteger charges. This integral expression has an associated phase factor that diverges logarithmically on an infinite volume unless the effective charges are chosen to satisfy a kinematic relationship, the so-called “Peterkop condition.” We derive the explicit form of the Peterkop phase for two commonly used models of electron-hydrogen ionization, the Temkin-Poet model and the collinear model. We show that the formal theory can be used to identify and remove this physically insignificant, volume-dependent phase from amplitudes computed using numerically stable integral expressions that do not satisfy the Peterkop condition.

• Received 13 April 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.68.020701