On the elastic scattering of electrons by lithium and the total cross sections for electron impact on lithium, sodium and potassium

In a recent publication Inokuti and McDowell (1974) have calculated the elastic electron-lithium cross section in the energy range up to 50 eV using a model based on a simple adiabatic 1/r4 polarization potential. By generalizing the model in order to take account of non-adiabatic effects it is shown that allowance for such effects is very important indeed and leads to a result consistent with the close-coupling and Glauber approximations. A careful estimate has also been made of the total cross sections for electron impact on lithium, sodium and potassium and it is found that while the normalizations of the sodium and potassium cross sections of Kasdan et al. (1971, 1973) are reasonable, the lithium cross section seems to be too large. A renormalization factor of about 0.76 is suggested for the lithium cross section.