https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-022-00482-8
Colloquium - Atomic and Molecular Collisions
Electron scattering processes: fundamentals, challenges, advances, and opportunities
1
Radiation Laboratory, University of Notre Dame, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA
2
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Notre Dame, 46556, Notre Dame, IN, USA
3
Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão 1731, 05508-090, São Paulo, Brazil
4
Department of Physics, California State University, 92831, Fullerton, CA, USA
5
Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, 94720, Berkeley, CA, USA
6
Institut für Ionenphysik und Angewandte Physik and Center for Molecular Biosciences, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria
Received:
13
April
2022
Accepted:
11
August
2022
Published online:
4
October
2022
Much effort has been devoted to describing qualitatively and quantitatively electron scattering processes due to their ever-increasing importance in many industrial and medical applications. We present achievements made in the last years, focusing on some of the advancements and recent progress in the field. Particular reference is made on concrete case studies to probe the level of accord in cross-section data obtained from experiments and theory, as well as on selected instrumentation developments to probe dynamics of dissociative processes induced by electron impact. We stress that the purpose of this colloquium paper is not to be a comprehensive review but rather to provide a snapshot of different research topics in electron scattering by pointing out certain challenges and, therefore, indicating opportunities to facilitate further experimental and theoretical work.
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