Comparison of model and ab initio polarization potentials in e-H scattering

The accuracy of ab initio effective optical and model polarization potentials has been assessed for S1, P1, S3, and P3 electron-hydrogen scattering where essentially exact results are available. These studies demonstrate that effective optical potentials can be used to provide highly accurate phase shifts for low-energy scattering where polarization effects are quite important and can be used to study the characteristics of Feshbach resonances. In addition, we find that the better-than-adiabatic dipole model polarization potential provides reasonably accurate results for this open-shell system.