ERCS08: A FORTRAN program equipped with a Windows graphics user interface that calculates ECPSSR cross sections for the removal of atomic electrons Original Research Article

ERCS08 is a program for computing the atomic electron removal cross sections. It is written in FORTRAN in order to make it more portable and easier to customize by a large community of physicists, but it also comes with a separate windows graphics user interface control application ERCS08w that makes it easy to quickly prepare the input file, run the program, as well as view and analyze the output. The calculations are based on the ECPSSR theory for direct (Coulomb) ionization and non-radiative electron capture. With versatility in mind, the program allows for selective inclusion or exclusion of individual contributions to the cross sections from effects such as projectile energy loss, Coulomb deflection of the projectile, perturbation of electronʹs stationary state (polarization and binding), as well as relativity. This makes it straightforward to assess the importance of each effect in a given collision regime. The control application also makes it easy to setup for calculations in inverse kinematics (i.e. ionization of projectile ions by target atoms or ions).