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Polarization effects in low-energy electron-CH sub 4 elastic collisions in an exact exchange treatment

Journal Article · · Physical Review (Section) A: General Physics; (USA)
;  [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Department of Physics, Box 981, Florida A M University, Tallahassee, Florida 32307 (USA)
  2. Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics The Queen's University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern (Ireland)

We have investigated the polarization effects in very-low-energy (below 1 eV) electron- CH{sub 4} collisions in an exact-exchange treatment. The two models of the parameter-free polarization potential are employed; one, the {ital V}{sub pol}{sup JT} potential, introduced by Jain and Thompson (J. Phys. B 15, L631 (1982)), is based on an approximate polarized-orbital method, and two, the correlation-polarization potential {ital V}{sub pol}{sup CP}, first proposed by O'Connel and Lane (Phys. Rev. A 27, 1893 (1983)), is given as a simple analytic form in terms of the charge density of the target. In this rather very low-energy region, the polarization effects play a decisive role, particularly in creating structure in the differential cross section (DCS) and producing the Ramsauer-Townsend minimum in the total cross section. Our DCS at 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 eV are compared with recent measurements. We found that a local parameter-free approximation for the polarization potential is quite successful if it is determined under the polarized-orbital-type technique rather than based on the correlation-polarization approach.

OSTI ID:
7017528
Journal Information:
Physical Review (Section) A: General Physics; (USA), Journal Name: Physical Review (Section) A: General Physics; (USA) Vol. 40:11; ISSN PLRAA; ISSN 0556-2791
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English