Many-Body Methods Applied to Electron Scattering from Atoms and Molecules. II. Inelastic Processes

It is shown how the generalized random-phase approximation, previously used to develop a self-consistent theory of elastic scattering and frequency-dependent polarizability, can be extended to the calculation of inelastic scattering cross sections from the ground state of the target. It is also shown that when calculating electron-atom scattering cross sections, one can simultaneously calculate without much additional work elastic and some specific inelastic scattering cross sections for an electron scattering off a positive-ion target. Improvements to the approximation scheme, using self-consistent perturbation methods, are briefly discussed.