Multiple scattering approach to low-energy electron collisions with the water dimer

TL;DR

This paper develops a multiple scattering theoretical approach to analyze low-energy electron collisions with water dimers, demonstrating its accuracy by comparing with R-matrix calculations.

Contribution

It introduces a multiple scattering method for electron-dimer collisions and validates it against R-matrix calculations, extending previous work on crystalline ice.

Findings

Good agreement between multiple scattering and R-matrix results

Effective approximation for complex molecular targets

Method applicable to other molecular collision systems

Abstract

Multiple scattering theory is applied to low-energy electron collisions with a complex target formed of two molecular scatterers. The total T-matrix is expressed in terms of the T-matrix for each isolated molecule. We apply the approach to elastic electron-(H2O)2 collisions. Following the method developed in our previous work on crystalline ice, we impose a cut-off on the dipole outside the R-matrix sphere and an energy dependent cut-off on the angular momentum components of the monomer T-matrix. An R-matrix calculation of electron-dimer collisions is performed in order to evaluate the accuracy of the multiple scattering approach. The agreement between the two calculations is very good.