Elastic electron scattering cross sections for molecular hydrogen

Using an electron-beam - molecular-beam apparatus and employing the relative flow technique, ratios of the differential elastic scattering cross sections (DCSs of H2 to He were measured at incident electron energies of 15-100 eV and over the angular range of 10-125 degrees. From these ratios, the absolute elastic DCSs for H2 were determined by normalization to accurate, available elastic DCSs of He. Since pure rotational structure was not resolved in this work, the DCSs reported are the sum of elastic and rotational excitations of H2 at room temperature. The reliability of the relative flow normalization to He was checked at each energy and angle by performing similar elastic DCS measurements on Ne (for which the cross sections are known). The resulting absolute Ne DCSs were found to be in good agreement (within 10 percent with the Ne elastic DCSs measured previously (Register and Trajmar, 1984). From the DCSs, integral and momentumtransfer cross sections were calculated. The present results are compared with other recent measurements.