  The ionization of atomic electrons by scattering of neutrinos is revisited.
This process is the one studied in the experimental searches for a neutrino
magnetic moment using germanium detectors. Current experiments are sensitive to
the ionization energy comparable with the atomic energies, and the effects of
the electron binding should be taken into account. We find that the so-called
stepping approximation to the neutrino-impact ionization is in fact exact in
the semiclassical limit and also that the deviations from this approximation
are very small already for the lowest bound Coulomb states. We also consider
the effects of electron-electron correlations and argue that the resulting
corrections to the ionization of independent electrons are quite small. In
particular we estimate that in germanium these are at a one percent level at
the energy transfer down to a fraction of keV. Exact sum rules are also
presented as well as analytical results for a few lowest hydrogen-like states.
