Low-Energy Electron Scattering from 2-Butyne: Elastic and Electronic Excitation Processes

Abstract

We report integral and differential cross sections for elastic and electronically inelastic electron scattering from the 2-butyne molecule. We considered excitations from the ground state to the 13B2, 13A2, 23B2, 23A2, 11A2, 21A2, 11B2, 11A1 and 11B1 excited states. The scattering amplitudes were computed using the Schwinger multichannel method implemented with norm-conserving pseudopotentials for incident electron energies from 0.01 eV up to 50 eV. The calculations were performed within a minimal orbital basis for single–configuration interaction strategy, at the close-coupling level including up to 247 open channels. In addition, total ionization cross sections were obtained using the Binary-Encounter-Bethe model. By combining the ionization cross sections with the present elastic and electronically inelastic results, we provide an estimate for the total cross section.