A Generalized Sturmian Treatment of (e, 3e) Processes Described as a Three-Body Coulomb Problem

The double ionization of helium by high energy electron impact is investigated. The pure four-body Coulomb problem may be reduced to a three-body one in accordance with the use of the first Born approximation. Even within this frame, major unexplained discrepancies subsist between several theoretical descriptions, and with available absolute experimental data. In this contribution we discuss an alternative formulation which allows to tackle the problem with a different methodology, the generalized Sturmian approach. We discuss some issues associated to the convergence of the calculated cross sections.