LOW-ENERGY-ELECTRON COLLISIONS WITH SODIUM - ELASTIC AND INELASIC SCATTERING FROM THE GROUND-STATE

The electron-Na system is the prototype for nonrelalivistic scattering of a charged particle from a quasi-one-electron system, At scattering energies below several eV, e-Na cross sections are particularly sensi tive to the exchange interaction and manifest a rich variety of near-t hreshold structures in various spin channels. By applying the nonpertu rbative coupled-channel R-matrix method in carefully converged calcula tions we have generated a comprehensive data base of accurate scatteri ng quantities for studying these phenomena and for comparison to prese nt and future experimental data. In particular, we examine elastic sca ttering and excitation of the 3p, 4s, 3d, and 4p excited states at ene rgies from threshold to 8.6 eV. In addition to conventional integrated and differential cross sections, we consider partial cross sections f or changes in the projection of the spin and orbital angular momentum of the Na valence electron, comparing results for all these quantities to experimental data where available.