Excitation of the Lowest Autoionizing Levels in Lithiumlike Ions by Electron Impact

We present theoretical, differential, and total cross sections for electron impact excitation of the lowest autoionizing levels of various lithiumlike ions (viz., Be+, B2+, C3+, O5+, and Ne7+). For these ions, the autoionizing level of interest results from excitation of an inner-shell electron. A distorted-wave Born approximation (with exchange) is used for the calculation. The present results are compared with previous theoretical calculations and it is concluded that the Coulomb-Born approach is unreliable, particularly near threshold