Plasma screening effects on the Ramsauer minima for the polarization electron atom scattering in weakly coupled plasmas

Abstract

The plasma screening effects on the Ramsauer phenomena for the polarization electron-atom scattering in weakly coupled plasmas are investigated by using the phase theory. The Fermi pseudopotential and Buckingham potential are employed to obtain the scattering phase shift and scattering cross section as functions of the scattering length, polarizability, collision energy, and Debye radius. It is shown that the Ramsauer energy for the Ramsauer minimum is found to be increased with decreasing Debye radius. It is also found that the plasma screening effect enhances the Ramsauer minimum of the electron-atom scattering cross section below the Ramsauer energy. However, the plasma screening effect suppresses the Ramsauer minimum above the Ramsauer energy. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.