Electron scattering from N₂O: Absolute elastic scattering and vibrational excitation

We report absolute measurements, using the relative flow technique, of low-to-intermediate energy (1.5-100 eV) differential cross sections (DCSs) for elastic electron scattering and vibrational excitation of nitrous oxide. These results, which have been undertaken independently in our two laboratories on different experimental apparatus, are compared in detail with each other and with previous experimental results and theoretical calculations. For elastic scattering the level of agreement between the DCSs from the two laboratories is generally very good. However, the agreement with recent theoretical calculations is rather poor, particularly at energies below 10 eV. For vibrational excitation DCS results have been measured at 2.4 and 8 eV - energies corresponding to the positions of two broad ²Π and ²Σ shape resonances respectively.