Electron collisions with strongly polar molecules

Abstract

Calculations are presented of cross sections for rotational excitation by electron impact of the polar molecules LiH (2.31), LiCl (2.79), CsF (3.09), NaCl (3.53), CsCl (4.08) and KI (4.26), where the bracketed numbers denote the permanent dipole moments of the species in atomic units. The behaviour of the cross sections is thus obtained for a range of dipole moments and at energies between 0.25 and 8.0 eV. For some of these species, other theoretical and experimental data have been obtained and a comparison with these shows that there is a considerable disparity between the various differential and momentum-transfer cross sections.