Theoretical study of e± scattering by the Au atom

Differential, integral, momentum-transfer, viscosity, inelastic and total cross sections as well as spin asymmetries are calculated for electron and positron scattering from the gold atom with nuclear spin 3/2 . The impact energies of the projectiles range from low-energy atomic physics regime to high-energy nuclear physics. This is accomplished by employing two different theoretical approaches, applicable for the aforesaid two domains of energies, and are based on the partial-wave analysis. In one approach, the phase shifts analysis is done at E-i < 1 MeV using the Dirac relativistic equations. In another approach, at E-i >= 100 keV, the same analysis is carried out with the distorted wave Born approximation to account for the projectile scattering including the magnetic effect as well. Predictions are reported for 1 eV <= E-i <= 0.5 GeV electrons and positrons colliding with Au-197 target. In addition, we report here systematically the details of the critical minima in the elastic differential cross sections. To date, neither any experimental nor any theoretical study on the critical minima of electron/positron-Au scattering system is available in the literature. Our results of other observables are compared with the available experimental data and other calculations and are found to produce quite reasonable agreements with two forms of data.