Eur. Phys. J. D 33, 193-199 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2005-00046-4

Elastic and rotational excitation cross-sections for electron-water collisions in the low- and intermediate-energy ranges

¹ Departamento de Física, UFSCar, 13565-905, São Carlos, SP, Brazil
² Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, UNICAMP, 13083-970, Campinas, SP, Brazil
³ Departamento de Química, UFSCar, 13565-905, São Carlos, SP, Brazil

Corresponding author: ^a bresca@ifi.unicamp.br

Received: 28 September 2004
Published online: 12 April 2005

Abstract

We present a theoretical study on electron-H₂O collisions in the low- and intermediate-energy ranges. More specifically, we report calculated elastic differential, integral and momentum transfer cross-sections as well as rotational excitation cross-sections in the (2–500)-eV range. In our calculations, an optical potential is used to represent the electron-molecule interaction. The Schwinger variational method combined with the distorted-wave approximation is used to solve the scattering equations. The comparison of our calculated results with other theoretical and/or experimental data available in the literature is very encouraging.