N ov 2 00 1 Path Integral Approach to the Non - Relativistic Electron Charge Transfer

A path integral approach has been generalized for the non-relativistic electron charge transfer processes. The charge transfer-the capture of an electron by an ion passing another atom, or more generally the problem of rearrangement collisions is formulated in terms of influence functionals. It has been shown that the electron charge transfer process can be treated either as electron transition problem or as elastic scattering of ion and atom in the some effective potential field. The first-order Born approximation for the electron charge transfer cross section has been reproduced to prove the adequacy of the path integral approach for this problem.