Electron-impact excitation and ionization of boron.

We present a comprehensive study of electron collisions with neutral boron atoms [1]. The calculations were performed with the $B$-Spline $R$-matrix (close-coupling) method [2], by employing a parallelized version of the associated computer code [3]. Elastic, momentum-transfer, 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 multi-configuration Hartree-Fock method with non-orthogonal term-dependent orbitals was used to generate accurate wavefunctions 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] K. Wang, O. Zatsarinny, and K. Bartschat, \par\noindent ~~~~Phys. Rev. A~{\bf 93} (2016)~052715. \par\noindent [2] O. Zatsarinny and K. Bartschat, J. Phys. B {\bf 46} (2013) 112001. \par\noindent [3] O. Zatsarinny, Comp. Phys. Commun. {\bf 174} (2006) 273.