Elastic Scattering of Electrons by Small and Large Molecules.*

Theoretical calculations for elastic electron-molecule collisions will be presented for incident electron energies in the intermediate to low energy range. There exists a fair amount of experimental data for which there are no theoretical calculations for comparison in the 10-500 eV energy range. We will present differential cross section results for molecular hydrogen (H$_{2})$, molecular nitrogen (N$_{2})$, and trifluoromethane (CHF$_{3})$. We have used the program called General Atomic and Molecular Structure System, or GAMESS, to generate molecular orbitals. We use these to determine a potential interaction energy for the electron-molecule system. The distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) was used to calculate the differential cross sections. The theoretical differential cross section results will be compared with experimental results.