Theory of Low-Energy-Electron Scattering by Polar Molecules

Abstract

The diffusion cross section for electrons in a gas of polar molecules is calculated. The improvement over a previous calculation is the use of the exact scattering cross section of a charged particle by a point dipole rather than the first Born approximation. For ${\mathrm{H}}_2$O the correction amounts to about 20% and worsens the agreement with experiment.