On the use of classical transport analysis to determine cross-sections for low-energy e–H2 vibrational excitation

The long-standing discrepancy between the theoretically and experimentally determined v = 0 → 1 vibrational cross-section of hydrogen is addressed by analysing the transport theory used to deconvolute electron swarm transport data. The implementation of the full energy and angular dependence of quantum mechanically derived differential cross-sections in the semiclassical transport theory (using both a multi-term Boltzmann equation solution and an independent Monte Carlo simulation) is shown to be unable to resolve the discrepancy. Assumptions and approximations used in the original transport analyses are quantified and validated.