Comparison of experiment and theory for superelastic electron-collision studies from laser-aligned magnesium

Pursehouse, James; Bostock, Chris; Nixon, Kate; Harvey, Matthew; Fursa, Dmitry V.; Bray, Igor and Murray, Andrew James (2018). Comparison of experiment and theory for superelastic electron-collision studies from laser-aligned magnesium. Physical Review A, 98(2), article no. 022702.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.98.022702

Abstract

A combined experimental and theoretical study of superelastic electron collisions from laser-aligned magnesium atoms for a range of collision energies from 35 to 55 eV is presented. ²⁴Mg atoms were excited from the 3 ¹S₀ ground state to the 3 ¹P₁ excited state using continuous-wave linearly polarized laser radiation at ∼285 nm. Electrons of well-defined energy E_inc then deexcited the targets, and the superelastically scattered electrons emerging from the collision were detected as a function of scattering angle and laser polarization. Results for alignment of the target by the electron beam are presented for a range of scattering angles, for outgoing energies from E_out=35 to 55 eV. The agreement between the measurements and the results of the convergent close-coupling theory are encouraging, but some discrepancies remain.