NEAR THRESHOLD EXCITATION OF HELIUM 3$^3$D BY ELECTRON IMPACT

A. Crowe$^\sharp $, D. Cvejanovic$^\sharp $, D. T. McLaughlin$^\sharp $, 
B. P. Donnelly$^\sharp $, D. Fursa$^\dagger $, I. Bray$^\dagger $ and K. Bartschat$^\ddagger $

$^\sharp ${Department of Physics, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU,  U.K.}

$^\dagger $ Electronic Structure of Materials Centre, The Flinders University of South 
Australia, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, Australia 

$^\ddagger $Department of Physics and Astronomy, Drake University, Des Moines, 
IA 50311, USA

The polarization correlation method is used to study excitation of the 3$^3$D 
state of helium with incident electrons having an excess energy 
of $\sim $370~meV above threshold. Complementary theoretical studies are 
carried out using both the R--Matrix with Pseudo States (RMPS) and Convergent 
Close Coupling (CCC) methods.