Low energy electron scattering by He and Ne atoms in Debye plasmas: Incorporating the screening effects through a semiempirical approach

A semiempirical optical potential approach to describe low energy electron–atom scattering by noble gas atoms immersed in static Debye plasmas is presented. As a first application, we considered electron scattering by He and Ne from threshold to 20 eV. Analysis of the scattering lengths and phase shifts showed that the plasma screening effect is not able to induce shape resonances or Ramsauer minima in the s-wave cross section, but minima in the p-wave cross sections for He and d-wave cross sections for both systems are observed. The elastic, momentum transfer and viscosity cross sections are reported. In particular, we find that the cross sections converge for all values considered for the screening parameter above a given energy, but are appreciable affected by the plasma screening towards the zero energy limit.