Interplay of charge exchange and projectile excitation in the stopping of swift heavy ions

The electronic energy loss of a dressed ion penetrating through matter is commonly considered as being synonymous with the sum of the excitation energies of the target and the projectile in atomic collisions undergone during the passage. We show that this is not justified in projectile-ionizing collisions and discuss some consequences. Received 23 October 2002 / Received in final form 1st December 2002 Published online 18 February 2003