Polarization effects in the elastic scattering of electrons by molecular hydrogen

The elastic differential cross section of electrons from molecular hydrogen has been calculated in the independent-atom model using the Glauber approximation for both direct and exchange scattering amplitudes. Polarization effects have been considered through the modified Glauber amplitude for the direct scattering. For the exchange amplitude the result obtained by Franco and Halpern has been used. Numerical results for various incident electron energies have been carried out. The polarization contribution has been found to have negative effects in bringing the calculated results close to the experimental values