3-BODY COUPLING IN ELECTRON-HYDROGEN IONIZING COLLISIONS

In this work a method is established for isolating effects due to sing le or successive two-body scatterings from those arising from three-bo dy coupling in a three-particle Coulomb system above the complete brea kup threshold. It is shown that three-body interactions decide the wei ghting of individual scattering amplitudes, and hence, determined the interference pattern of these amplitudes. In addition, the method is a pplied to the analysis of low-energy, electron-impact ionization of at omic hydrogen in the coplanar asymmetric energy-sharing kinematic. The ionization dynamic leading to the measured cross section is unraveled . It is demonstrated that, unlike the situation at higher energies, at low incident energies the cross section is largely decided by interfe rences indicating a strong three-body coupling.