Polarization of Slow Electrons by Hg and Range of Applicability of the Relativistic Hartree Potential

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Abstract
New measurements on the angular and energy dependence of the polarization of slow electrons scattered by mercury atoms are reported. Special attention is paid to electron energies below 500 eV where, according to a recent paper of Schonfelder, deviations from the present theories should be expected, since at small energies the use of the static Hartree potential for treating the scattering process should no longer be a good approximation. Since the measurements were made with an angular resolution of ±1°, a direct comparison with the theoretical results was feasible. Absence of plural scattering was carefully checked. The discrepancies between theory and experiment reported by Schonfelder did not appear, and the theoretical results proved reliable down to 100 eV, the lowest energy for which numerical evaluations of the present theories were available. A survey of the work which has been done so far on electron polarization by scattering from mercury atoms indicates sound knowledge of the polarization effect for energies between 100 and 2000 eV and scattering angles from 30° to 150°.