Complex absorbing potentials in the framework of electron propagator theory. II. Application to temporary anions

In continuation of Paper I of this work we describe a practical application of the combination of complex absorbing potentials (CAPs) with Green’s functions. We use a new approach for calculation of energies and lifetimes of temporary anions, which emerge, e.g., from elastic scattering of electrons from closed-shell targets. This new method is able to treat the continuum and correlation effects simultaneously and reduces the problem to the diagonalization of a number of relatively small, complex symmetric matrices. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated and its dependence on basis set and parameters characterizing the CAP is investigated using the Πg2 resonance state of N2− as an example. We also present the first correlated ab initio calculation of energies and lifetimes of resonances in elastic electron scattering from the organic molecule chlorobenzene. Our results for both examples are in good agreement with existing experimental values and other theoretical calculations. Possible future developments are discussed.