Single-electron-loss cross sections of DNA and RNA bases impacted by energetic multicharged ions: A classical Monte Carlo approximation

H. LEKADIR; I. ABBAS; C. CHAMPION; O. FOJON; R. D. RIVAROLA; J. HANSSEN

PHYSICAL REVIEW A - ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2009 vol. 79 p. 627101 - 627106

1050-2947

Electron loss from the four DNA nucleobases, namely, adenine, cytosine, thymine, and guanine as well as from RNA uracil base produced by high-energy impact of multiply charged bare ions are here theoretically investigated via a simple model combining two classical approximations—the classical trajectory Monte Carlo and the classical overbarrier—previously used with success to describe the ionization of water molecules by ions. We give in the present work an estimation of the single-electron ionization and single-electron capture cross sections for different incident projectiles, namely, H+, He2+, and C6+ ions with impact energies ranging from 10 keV/amu to 10 MeV/amu. The obtained results are compared to the rare theoretical predictions available in the literature and therefore highlight binding effects whose existence has been already demonstrated in the case of atomic collisions but not for _so_ large molecular systems.