The feasibility of using neural networks to obtain cross sections from electron swarm data

This paper reports that although still more a curiosity than an accepted technique in computational modeling, the very new field of neural computing is beginning to find applications in physics. Presented in some background on neural computing and a discussion on the use of neural networks to obtain electron-impact cross sections from measured drift velocities, characteristic energies, and other swarm data. This is what is known as an inverse problem, a class of problems for which neural networks may be frequently superior to other numerical algorithms. Momentum transfer cross sections obtained for a model problem and for xenon using a neural network are presented