Electron scattering by the hydrogen-halides. I. e--HF collisions

Close-coupling calculations have been performed to study the vibrational and rotational excitation of HF by electron impact in the energy range 0.46-2.0 eV. The differential and total cross sections are found to exhibit strong resonance features in the vicinity of the excitation threshold energies. A comparison with experimental data shows good agreement with the magnitudes of the cross sections, which are exceptionally large, but some of the calculated features are sharper than those experimentally observed. The calculations also show a strong resonance profile below the first vibrational threshold.