Local basis formulation for the Floquet theory of electronic stopping of ion projectiles

Ions shooting through solids are slowed down by electronic excitation in the so-called electronic stopping process. This century-old problem is of fundamental and applied interest in various contexts, including nuclear, space and biomedical industries. The electronic stopping problem is approached theoretically from two prevalent paradigms, one based on linear response for weak effective interactions, the other on the homogeneous electron liquid, a successful model for simple metals. A more general theory for crystalline solids has been introduced recently based on exploiting a discrete translational invariance along a space-time diagonal, the Floquet theory of electronic stopping [1]. Here we will present how to formalise this theory using a local basis for the practical solution of the unconventional scattering problem that arises from the theory.

[1] Forcellini, N. and Artacho, E., arXiv:1908.09783 (2019).