Resonances in electron collisions with C2H2Cl2 isomers

Abstract

We present elastic cross sections for low-energy electron collisions with the isomers of C2H2Cl2 molecule, namely 1,1-dichloroethylene, cis-1,2-dichloroethylene and trans-1,2-dichloroethylene. To compute the cross sections, we employed the Schwinger multichannel method with pseudopotentials in the static exchange and in the static-exchange plus polarization approximations for energies up to 40 eV. We found π* and σ* shape resonances in the cross sections of the three isomers, with positions in relative agreement with the results reported by Burrow et al (1981 Chem. Phys. Lett. 82 270) for the vertical attachment energies. We also carried out electronic structure calculations in order to help in the characterization of these resonances. We found a Ramsauer–Townsend minimum in the cross section of trans-1,2-dichloroethylene at 0.1 eV.