Experimental verification on the applicability of the independent-atom model (IAM) for elastic electron-molecule scattering in the intermediate-energy range

In this work, we report an experimental verification on the applicability of the IAM in the intermediate-energy range. Absolute cross-sections for electron elastic collisions with three hydrocarbon molecules of different complexity, acetylene, n-butane and benzene are measured in the (100-1000)-eV range. Also, IAM at the static-polarization potential level is used to calculate differential, integral, and momentum-transfer cross-sections for electron interaction with these targets. Our study has shown that the validity of this simple model depends significantly on incident energies, but is not sensitive in regard to the size of the targets. For energies above 300 eV, quite reliable DCS and MTCS can be obtained using the IAM. However, the IAM calculations overestimate the ICS, even at incident energies as high as 1000 eV.