Orbital effect in elastic electron scattering by a polarized excited target

Abstract
Azimuthal asymmetry in elastic scattering has been measured for electron collisions with laser-excited, polarized (3P) Na atoms. An observation of this asymmetry in the elastic channel is reported for incident electron energies in the range of 1 to 10 eV at polar scattering angle 135°. Data with selected magnetic sublevels provide a stringent test for available calculations where even the most successful one, the convergent close-coupling calculation, has difficulties at the large scattering angles.