Ab initio inclusion of polarization effects in the Schwinger multichannel formulation: Application to elastic e-H_2 scattering

To assess the accuracy with which polarization is represented in the Schwinger multichannel formulation, we have calculated elastic integral and differential scattering cross sections for e-H2 collisions from 1 to 10 eV. Our ab initio results are found to be in good agreement with other recent theoretical studies and with a variety of experimental data including measured differential cross sections. Our method is designed to be applicable to electronically inelastic collisions and to closed-shell targent molecules of arbitrary geometry.