ELASTIC AND INELASTIC INTERACTIONS OF HE AND NE ATOMS WITH METAL-SURFACES

The experimental information accumulated in recent years on elastic an d inelastic scattering of He and Ne atoms from metal surfaces is analy sed by describing the atom-surface interaction as a superposition of p seudo-pairwise potentials. These are chosen according to the quite acc urate potentials presently available for van der Waals pairs and take a phenomenological account for many body effects. The emerging picture is quite satisfactory and allows the physical interaction of a given atom-surface system to be predicted with excellent accuracy. In partic ular the coupling of He atoms to the surface vibrational modes is cons idered with attention focused on He inelastic scattering from Cu(001).