Fixed-energy inverse scattering theory has been used to define central and spin-orbit Schrödinger potentials for the scattering of 5-eV polarized electrons from Xe atoms. The results are typical for a range of such data; including energies above threshold when the potentials become complex. The phase shifts obtained from an analysis of the measured differential cross section and analyzing power were used as input data. Both semiclassical (WKB) and fully quantal inversion methods were used to extract central and spin-orbit interactions. The analysis shows that information additional to the set of input phase shifts extracted from these (and similar) data may be needed to ascertain physical potentials.

• Received 14 July 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.63.012707