EPJ D Topical review - Electron collisions with molecules and molecular clusters

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Published on 25 March 2020

Over the last ten years, advances in the computational investigation of electron collision processes have seen an overhaul of many of the software packages employed by researchers, in parallel with the development of new tools. In particular, the increased interest in biological molecules as targets has stimulated the development of software which makes use of current computational abilities. These developments have enabled scientists to study small targets with increasing levels of detail, larger targets than ever before, and the effect of the environment by means of the investigation of small molecular clusters.

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EPJ D Topical review - Electron-scattering on molecular hydrogen: convergent close-coupling approach

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Published on 24 March 2020

Molecular hydrogen is the simplest neutral molecule, the most abundant molecule in the universe and an important constituent of plasmas with applications in astrophysics, fusion, atmospheric physics, and various industries. Elemental collision processes play an important role in modelling these plasmas, and collisions with electrons have attracted significant interest from both experiment and theory. A number of compilations of cross sections for electron collisions with molecular hydrogen have been produced. In all cases these cross section data sets have been produced from an analysis of experimental data, even though there were significant discrepancies between different experiments for many transitions. Theoretical calculations have been largely excluded from critical evaluations of the data due to large uncertainties. This changed with the application of the convergent close-coupling (CCC) method to electron collisions with molecules.

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EPJ D Highlight - Frozen-planet states in exotic helium atoms

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Published on 18 March 2020

In an elegant study published in EPJ D, physicists from Serbia and Russia have mapped the energy levels and estimated the stability of a ‘frozen planet’ configuration of anti-protonic helium.

Exotic subatomic particles that are like ‘normal’ particles apart from one, opposite, property - such as the positron, which is like an electron but positively rather than negatively charged - are collectively known as antimatter. Direct studies of collisions between particles of matter and those of antimatter using giant facilities such as those at CERN can advance our understanding of the nature of matter. A new study by Tasko Grozdanov from the University of Belgrade in Serbia and Evgeni Solov’ev from the Institute of Nuclear Research near Moscow in Russia has mapped the energy levels of an exotic form of helium produced in this way. This work, which is published in EPJ D, has been described by one commentator as ”... a new jewel in the treasure of scientific achievements in atomic physics theory”.

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