Explanation of the observed trend in the mean excitation energy of a target as determined using several projectiles

Recently, Porter observed [L.E. Porter, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 90, 684 (2002)] that the mean excitation energy and stopping cross section of a target, obtained from fitting experimental data at given projectile charge to a modified Bethe-Block theory, gives projectile dependent results. The main result of his work is that there is a trend for the inferred target mean excitation energy, to decrease as the projectile atomic number increases. However, this result is inconsistent with the usual definition of the mean excitation energy as a function of target excitation properties only. Here we present an explanation of Porter’s results based on the Bethe theory extended to take projectile electronic structure explicitly into account.