Absorption effects in intermediate energy elastic electron scattering from xenon

We present experimental and theoretical differential cross sections for elastic electron scattering from xenon. Two independent measurements were carried out at (1) Chungnam National University for incident electron energies of 10, 20, 30, 50 and 100 eV and scattering angles from 10° up to 180° and (2) the Institute of Physics in Belgrade for incident electron energies of 20, 30 and 50 eV and scattering angles from 10° up to 150°. While these latter measurements do not cover the full angular range up to 180°, they still extend somewhat higher in scattering angle than previous measurements. It would appear that the theoretical treatment of intermediate energy elastic scattering from xenon is sensitive to the inclusion of absorption effects, particularly at backward scattering angles. This observation plus the previous results for the case of krypton indicates that the role of absorption is generally quite important for the rare gases.