Theoretical description of the ionization processes with a discrete basis set representation of the electronic continuum

In this work we present a new method of approximating the continuum wavefunctions with a discrete basis set. This method aims to be at least compatible with other well known methods of the electronic structure theory to describe processes in the electronic continuum. As an example of the application we present the results of the calculations of the photoionization cross sections for the hydrogen atom and hydrogen molecule and for the helium atom. We also obtained the photoelectron angular distribution for the hydrogen molecule. The agreement of our results with the experimental data is very good in the energy range from the ionization threshold up to photon energies of about 60 eV.