Collisionally excited few-electron systems: theoretical introduction and survey. [2-200 keV]

We consider excitation, ionization, and charge transfer in collisions of protons (and antiprotons) with the single-electron targets H, He/sup +/, and Li/sup 2 +/. These collisions are first compared to other types of ion-atom collisions. A brief review of our own theoretical method is given; in particular we describe how we allow for both large charge transfer and ionization probabilities while retaining the computational efficiency that allows us to consider a variety of collision partners and collision energies. We comment on the comparison of our results to other theoretical work and to experiment. The qualitative features of the various inelastic cross sections are discussed, in particular how they scale with collision energy, target nuclear charge, and the sign of the projectile charge. 15 references, 6 figures.