Electronic excitation in low-energy electron scattering by N₂ molecules

Presents the results of an ab initio study of electronic excitation of the N₂ molecule by low-energy electrons. The authors have adopted the fixed nuclei R-matrix approach in which the internuclear separation was chosen to be R=2.068a₀. They included the ground state X ¹ Sigma ⁺_g, and the first three valence excited states A ³ Sigma ⁺_u, B ³ Pi _g and W ³ Delta _u in the expansion of the total wavefunction and have considered incident electron energies of up to 20 eV. Integrated cross sections for electronic excitation from the ground state to these valence excited states are presented and compared with the available experimental data. There is good agreement between their calculated values and experiment for the XA and XW transitions. However their cross section for the XB transition is in poor agreement due to neglecting the nuclear motion in their calculations.