RELATION BETWEEN LOW-ENERGY-ELECTRON SCATTERING AND L-CHANGING COLLISIONS OF RYDBERG ATOMS

Collisions of Rydberg atoms with other atoms may induce changes in the electronic orbital angular momentum of the Rydberg state. A theory is presented that expresses the cross section for this process in terms of the s-wave amplitude for low-energy-electron scattering from the other atom. In its most accurate form, the theory requires a convolution of the electron-scattering amplitude and the initial momentum-space wave function of the Rydberg state. However, an approximate analytic solution is derived in which the l-mixing cross section at a particular n is written as the electron-scattering cross section at the mean electronic kinetic energy of the Rydberg state, multiplied by a scaling function that depends only on n. The analytic solution clearly exhibits the asymptotic scaling behavior of the cross sections. Collisions of Na(nd)+He, Ne, and Ar are treated as specific examples. © 1979 The American Physical Society.