CALCULATION OF ROTATIONALLY INELASTIC PROCESSES IN ELECTRON COLLISIONS WITH CO2 MOLECULES

The rotational excitation of the title linear polyatomic target, treat ed as a rigid rotor is computed using a fully ab initio interaction po tential recently employed to obtain integral elastic cross sections [G ianturco and Stoecklin, J. Phys. B 29, 3933 (1996)] and to unravel sev eral resonances in the low-energy region. The present study looks at t he rotationally inelastic processes which can occur in the energy rang e across the ling-lived shape resonance at 3.9 eV and finds that the r esonant process strongly enhances the overall efficiency of the rotati onal excitation by the electron projectile, as shown by the computed v alues of the average rotational energy transfers. Angular distribution s are also evaluated at different collision energies and compared with earlier calculations.