Elastic and absorption cross sections for electron-nitrous oxide collisions

In this work, we present a joint theoretical-experimental study on electron-N2O collisions in the intermediate energy range. More specifically, calculated and measured elastic differential, integral, and momentum-transfer cross sections, as well as calculated total and absorption cross sections are reported. The measurements were performed using a crossed electron-beam-molecular-beam geometry. The angular distribution of the scattered electrons was converted to absolute cross sections using the relative-flow technique. Theoretically, a complex optical potential is used to represent the electron-molecule interaction dynamics in the present calculation. The Schwinger variational iterative method combined with the distorted-wave approximation is used to solve the scattering equations. The comparison of the present calculated results with the measured results as well as with the existing experimental and theoretical data shows good agreement.