Scattering of atomic particles at relativistic energies

This article is concerned with excitation, ionization and electron capture collisions between charged particles and atomic systems involving a single active electron, at impact energies which are so great that Lorentz transformations between the frames of reference of the incident and target particles must be carried out as well as relativistic dynamics employed. For excitations and ionization it is sufficiently accurate to use the relativistic generalization of the first Born approximation, but for electron capture it is necessary to carry through the analysis using a relativistic generalization of the second Born approximation. Also relativistic wave functions are employed to describe the active atomic electron.