Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 153
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50166-7

Regular Article

Momentum transfer cross sections for the heavy noble gases

¹ Atomic and Molecular Physics Laboratories, Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200 ACT, Australia
² Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, Toronto M3J 1P3, Canada

^a e-mail: stauffer@yorku.ca

Received: 28 February 2014
Received in final form: 5 April 2014
Published online: 23 June 2014

Abstract

We present momentum transfer cross sections for elastic electron scattering from argon, krypton and xenon atoms over the energy range from zero to 1 keV. These have been calculated using the Dirac equations with a relativistic complex optical potential which includes polarization of the target atom by the incident electron and allows for the absorption of some of the incident electron flux into channels representing excitation and ionization of the atom. In order to aid in plasma modelling calculations, we provide simple analytic fits to these cross sections as well as to the elastic scattering cross sections. Comparisons are made with previous experimental and theoretical results.