Calculation of rotationally inelastic processes in electron collisions with CO2 molecules

The rotational excitation of the title linear polyatomic target, treated as a rigid rotor is computed using a fully ab initio interaction potential recently employed to obtain integral elastic cross sections [Gianturco and Stoecklin, J. Phys. B 29, 3933 (1996)] and to unravel several resonances in the low-energy region. The present study looks at the rotationally inelastic processes which can occur in the energy range across the ling-lived shape resonance at 3.9 eV and finds that the resonant process strongly enhances the overall efficiency of the rotational excitation by the electron projectile, as shown by the computed values of the average rotational energy transfers. Angular distributions are also evaluated at different collision energies and compared with earlier calculations.