A discrete variable representation for electron-hydrogen atom scattering

Abstract

A discrete variable representation (DVR) suitable for treating the quantum scattering of a low energy electron from a hydrogen atom is presented. The benefits of DVR techniques (e.g. the removal of the requirement of calculating multidimensional potential energy matrix elements and the availability of iterative sparse matrix diagonalization/inversion algorithms) have for many years been applied successfully to studies of quantum molecular scattering. Unfortunately, the presence of a Coulomb singularity at the electrically unshielded center of a hydrogen atom requires high radial grid point densities in this region of the scattering coordinate, while the presence of finite kinetic energy in the asymptotic scattering electron also requires a sufficiently large radial grid point density at moderate distances from the nucleus. The constraints imposed by these two length scales have made application of current DVR methods to this scattering event difficult.