P. J. O. Teubner, V. Karaganov and K. Stockman

Department of Physics, The Flinders University of South Australia, GPO Box 2100
Adelaide SA 5001, Australia
Peter.Teubner@flinders.edu.au

The technique of superelastic electron scattering will be described. In these experiments electrons impinge on atoms which have been excited by light from a laser beam. The scattered electrons that gain energy in the collision equal to the photon energy are called superelastic electrons. The superelastic signal is observed as a function of the polarization of the laser light and at scattering angles in the range from 0∞ to 150∞. A complete picture of the spin averaged final state wavefunction can be constructed from these observations. Consequently superelastic scattering experiments produce results that are a very sensitive test of the theory of electron scattering from atoms. We will present our results for electron scattering from lithium and from potassium. These data are compared with those predicted by a convergent close coupling calculation of Bray. We will show that there is excellent agreement between experiment and theory for lithium. In the case of potassium the agreement is good but not as spectacular as is the case for lithium.