Harshit N. Kothari / K. N. Joshipura
This book presents electron impact collision theories and results on exotic atoms and molecules. It introduces a simple method developed to estimate total elastic and inelastic (including ionization) cross sections for electron scattering from atoms and molecules. Chapter 1 examines electron impact with exotic targets such as atomic hydrogen and oxygen in both ground and excited states, as well as metastable molecules like H₂* and N₂*. Chapter 2 focuses on the calculation of total ionization cross sections for NF₃ molecules, silicon chloride radicals, and larger tetrahedral molecules like SiCl₄. The dissociation of SiCl₄ yields key components such as SiClₓ (x = 1-3), relevant in plasma processes. Our group has also initiated theoretical work on the scattering of low-energy electrons by molecular targets. Chapter 2 briefly discusses low-energy calculations using the R-matrix method as implemented in the Quantemol-N software, which also provides Binary-Encounter-Bethe (BEB) ionization cross sections.