Exchange effects in the transition amplitude for inelastic electron-cluster collisions

Abstract

The effect of the electronic exchange in the calculation of the scattering amplitude for inelastic electron-cluster collisions is evaluated. The target cluster initially in the ground state is excited, by means of the Coulomb forces, into a particle-hole state. An antisymmetrized transition amplitude is evaluated in the scope of the distorted-wave Born approximation. A comparison is made with a calculation in which the exchange is taken into account by adding to the direct interaction a Coulomb exchange term in the Slater approximation. The treatments are applied to the closed-shell Na{sub 8} cluster for incident energies up to 5 eV. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}