Interaction of Slow Electrons with Atomic Oxygen and Atomic Nitrogen

Abstract

The polarization potential for an electron in the field of an oxygen atom has been determined by utilizing recent experimental results on the binding energy of ${\mathrm{O}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. The corresponding polarization potential for atomic nitrogen has been obtained from the results for oxygen by an extrapolation based on the theory of polarization. From these results the photodetachment cross section for ${\mathrm{O}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and the scattering cross sections for oxygen and nitrogen have been calculated. The photodetachment cross section is in good agreement with experimental results. The scattering cross sections are compared with other recent calculations.It is also shown on the basis of the general theory of the photodetachment cross section that the energy dependence of the cross section determines the scattering length for electron scattering. The agreement of the computed photodetachment cross section with experiment therefore is a direct check on the scattering prediction.