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Double‐Plasmon Excitation in a Free‐Electron Gas
Author(s) -
Ashley J. C.,
Ritchie R. H.
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
physica status solidi (b)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 109
eISSN - 1521-3951
pISSN - 0370-1972
DOI - 10.1002/pssb.19700380144
Subject(s) - excitation , plasmon , mean free path , atomic physics , free electron model , inverse , random phase approximation , electron , surface plasmon , physics , fermi gas , molecular physics , chemistry , optics , quantum mechanics , mathematics , geometry
The interaction of a fast charged particle moving in a free‐electron gas is described in the random phase approximation (RPA). The mean free path for the second order process of double‐plasmon excitation in the free‐electron gas is calculated. We find that the inverse mean free path for the double‐plasmon excitation process is related to the inverse mean free path for single plasmon excitation by λ −1 2p= 0.0103 r 2 s λ −1 p . Thus, for electron densities corresponding to those in a real metal (1 < r s < 6) double‐plasmon excitation may be important in the interpretation of certain experimental results as, for example, characteristic energy loss measurements.