Polarized Electron-Atom Collisions

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Professor Gay and his coworkers will undertake three investigations involving the scattering of polarized electrons by Atoms and molecules. (1) Superelastic scattering of the spin polarized electrons from energy-rich, long-lived atomic excited states. In superelastic scattering some of the internal energy of the atom transfers to the kinetic energy of the electron at the time of collision. (2) The effect of helicity or "handedness" in electron scattering. Many naturally occurring molecules have one handedness but not the other but not both-- this study is a search for the fundamental physical reason behind this "natural" preference. (3) A systematic study of helium excitation and subsequent fluorescence to determine if this process can be made a highly accurate standard for electron polarimetry.