Charged particles energy loss

Collisions that result in ionization or excitation are called inelastic collisions. A charged particle moving through matter may also have elastic collisions with nuclei or atomic electrons. In such a case, the incident particle loses the energy required for conservation of kinetic energy and linear momentum. Elastic collisions are not important for charged-particle energy loss and detection. 

John, W., Particle-Surface Interactions Charge Transfer, Energy Loss, Resuspension, and Deagglomeration, Aerosol Sci. Technol., 23, 2-24 (1995). 

Particle energy loss via Cerenkov radiation is only a negligible fraction of the total one and the number of Cerenkov photons emitted by a charged relativistic particle in water is roughly 300 per cm of track4. Simulations show that an underwater detector having an instrumented volume of about 1 km3 equipped with 5000 optical modules can achieve an affective area of 1 km2 and an angular resolution of 0.1° for E > 10 TeV muons [36],... 

Stopping Power—The average rate of energy loss of a charged particle per unit thickness of a material or per unit mass of material traversed. 

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