Cross Sections for Electron Scattering from Atomic Tin

Abstract

The relativistic convergent close-coupling method is applied to calculate cross sections for electron scattering from atomic tin. We present integrated and momentum-transfer cross sections for elastic scattering from the ground and the first four excited states of tin for projectile energies ranging from 0.1 to 500 eV. Integrated and selected differential cross sections are presented for excitation to the 5p2, 5p6s, 5p5d and 5p6p manifolds from the ground state. The total ionisation cross sections are calculated from the ground and the first four excited states, accounting for the direct ionisation of the 5p valence shell and the closed 5s shell and the indirect contributions from the excitation–autoionisation. The presented results are compared with previous theoretical predictions and an experiment where available. For the total ionisation cross sections, we find good agreement with the experiment and other theories, while for excitation cross sections, the agreement is mixed.