Low-energy electron scattering from O₂

Abstract

Absolute differential cross sections for elastic electron scattering from molecular oxygen have been measured at incident electron energies between 1 and 30 eV and over a range of scattering angles between 10 and 130 degrees . These results are compared with other measurements and they highlight a substantial degree of discrepancy between the various experiments at energies below 10 eV. They also indicate some interesting behaviour at low energies and forward angles, which appears to be common to a number of other diatomic molecules. The data are also compared with a recent Schwinger variational calculation, (Ribiero et al., 1994) and total elastic and elastic momentum transfer cross sections, derived from the differential measurements, are also presented and compared with a recent R-matrix calculation.