Electron-impact excitation and ionization of atomic boron at low and intermediate energies.

We present a comprehensive study of electron collisions with neutral boron atoms. The calculations were performed with the $B$-Spline $R$-matrix (close-coupling) method [1], by employing a parallelized version of the associated computer code [2]. Elastic, excitation, and ionization cross sections were obtained for all transitions involving the lowest 11 states of boron, for incident electron energies ranging from threshold to 100 eV. A multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock method with nonorthogonal term-dependent orbitals was used to generate accurate wave functions for the target states. Close-coupling expansions including 13, 51, and 999 physical and pseudo states were set up to check the sensitivity of the predictions to variations in the theoretical model. The cross-section dataset generated in this work is expected to be the most accurate one available today and should be sufficiently comprehensive for most modeling applications involving neutral boron. \par\noindent [1] O. Zatsarinny and K. Bartschat, J. Phys. B 46 (2013) 112001. \par\noindent [2] O. Zatsarinny, Comp. Phys. Commun. 174 (2006) 273.