Convergent close-coupling method for the calculation of electron scattering on hydrogenlike targets

Abstract

We extend the convergent-close-coupling method for the calculation of electron-hydrogen scattering to hydrogenlike targets, atoms, or ions. These include H, Li, Na, and K, atoms, as well as the multitude of ions which have the same isoelectronic sequence as any of these atoms. The reliability of the method is independent of the projectile energy, and we demonstrate its applicability by achieving excellent agreement with a large set of measurements for electron scattering on sodium at projectile energies ranging from 1 to 54.4 eV. These measurements include spin asymmetries, singlet and triplet ${\mathit{L}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\perp}}}$, reduced Stokes parameters, differential, integrated, and total cross sections, as well as the total ionization spin asymmetry. The method is found to give better agreement with experiment than any other over this entire energy range.