Integral and differential cross section for electron-impact excitation of 12 of the lowest states of argon

A semi-relativistic first-order distorted-wave Born theory has been used to calculate differential and integral cross sections for electron-impact excitation of the argon atom to 12 different states in the 3p⁵4s and 3p⁵4p manifolds. The calculations were performed at energies between threshold and 150 eV. Our results show that a single-configuration representation is adequate for these excited states of argon. In general, reasonably good agreement between theory and experiment is found at higher energies for those states which can be excited by a first-order direct transition and mixed results are found for those states which can only be excited by exchange transitions in first order.