Electron elastic scattering off a spin-polarized Cr atom

TL;DR

This study theoretically investigates electron elastic scattering off a spin-polarized chromium atom, revealing significant differences in scattering behavior for electrons with opposite spins due to exchange interactions and electron correlation effects.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed theoretical analysis using spin-polarized Hartree-Fock and RPAE methods, highlighting the role of exchange and correlation in spin-dependent scattering.

Findings

Scattering phase shifts differ significantly for opposite spins.

Exchange interactions are influenced by the atom's semifilled subshells.

Electron correlation induces strong spin-dependent scattering differences.

Abstract

Electron elastic scattering off a spin-polarized Cr(...$3d^{5}4s^{1}$, $^{7}S$) atom is theoretically studied in the region of electron energies up to $15$ eV using both a one-electron "spin-polarized" Hartree-Fock and multielectron "spin-polarized" random phase approximation with exchange. It is found that scattering phase shifts of oppositely spin-polarized incoming electrons and corresponding cross sections of the scattering reactions significantly differ from each other, in general, even without accounting for spin-orbit interaction. This is shown to be associated with the presence of two semifilled $3d^{5}$ and $4s^{1}$ subshells in the Cr's configuration which induce considerably different exchange in the interaction of oppositely spin-polarized incoming electrons with the atom-target. The importance of electron correlation in $e^{-}+\rm Cr$ elastic scattering process is revealed. Moreover, correlation is shown to induce strong differences between scattering of oppositely spin-polarized electrons off Cr. A physically transparent interpretation for the latter is provided.