Consequences on the electron-capture to continuum peak produced by a screening of the postcollisional electron-projectile interaction

The electron capture to continuum (ECC) from atoms by a fast bare ion is investigated assuming that the electron-projectile interaction in the final state is a screened Coulomb potential. The cut-off Coulomb and Hulth\'en potentials are used to show that the ECC cross section is either finite or diverges as $\frac{1}{{v}^{2}}$ for small final relative electron-projectile velocities ($\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\mathrm{v}}$). Theoretically this represents a considerable deviation from the usual premise of the $\frac{1}{v}$ behavior given by the Coulomb factor. However, for gaseous targets we get the usual ECC peak shape as an average over the screening range of the interaction. We discuss some experimental conditions where anomalies due to screening are expected to be observable.