Electron-impact ionization of Na

Recent convergent close-coupling calculations of the ionization cross section of Na by Bray [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 1088 (1994)] are in poor agreement with the experimental determinations, most of which were carried out in the 1960s. We report here a measurement of the ratio of the peak ionization cross section to the cross section for excitation of the 32P state near threshold. By normalizing the latter to the theoretical cross section computed by Moores and Norcross [J. Phys. B 5, 1482 (1972)] and more recently by Trail et al. [Phys. Rev. A 49, 3620 (1994)], we find an ionization cross section in agreement with Bray within 10%