A new approach to study electron and positron scattering from acetylene

Highlights: • Electron and positron elastic scattering from C₂H₂ molecule using the optical potential model approach is presented. • Wave functions of C₂H₂ are represented through STO-6 G Gaussian orbitals obtained using the Gaussian 16 package. • Using new approach, the spherically symmetric static potential is obtained in analytical form. • Further, the exchange, polarization and absorption potentials added to construct the complex optical potential. • Different cross section results are reported and compared with measurements and other calculations. Studies on electron and positron scattering from acetylene are very important for their applications in the plasma and astronomical environments. In view of such importance, we have performed the cross section calculations for electron and positron scattering from acetylene molecule using the optical model potential method with an analytically obtained static potential. In the present study, the charge cloud of acetylene is represented through multi-center Gaussian wavefunctions and using the same, static potential seen by the projectile electron/positron is evaluated analytically with a new approach. A complex optical potential consisting of our analytical static potential with the appropriate exchange, polarization and absorption potentials has been obtained. Using this complex potential in the Schrodinger equation and utilizing partial wave analysis technique, the scattering phase shifts are evaluated for the electron and positron collisions with the acetylene molecule. Differential, integral, momentum transfer, absorption and total cross sections have been calculated for the incident projectile energies in the range 10−500 eV. The obtained results are compared with the previous available theoretical and experimental results, which show good agreement and thus demonstrate the applicability of our method.