The optical model for 100 eV elastic electron scattering on argon

The optical model for electron scattering on atoms describes both differential and total reaction cross sections. The well-known values of ionization cross sections provide a lower limit to reaction cross sections and, in the case of 100 eV electrons on argon, and upper limit to possible experimental values of differential cross sections. The present work investigates the sensitivity of the cross sections to physically-reasonable assumptions about the model and shows that it can give valuable help in deciding the consistency of different measurements of entrance channel data.