Accurate ab initio calculation of scattering length and phase shifts at very low energies for electron-neon scattering.

Abstract

The scattering length for electron-neon scattering is calculated very accurately for the first time by an ab initio method resulting in a rigorous upper bound of 0.2218${\mathit{a}}_{0}$. The calculation uses the multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock method which includes the effects of dynamical target polarization and electron correlation through the configuration interaction procedure. Phase shifts are also calculated for very low energies, an extremely difficult region for accurate theoretical investigation. The results are found to be in excellent agreement with the most accurate experimental results of O'Malley and Crompton.