Electron impact cross sections of vibrationally and electronically excited molecules

It is well known that the electron impact cross sections for elastic and inelastic processes for the vibrationally and electronically excited molecules are predominantly different than those for molecules in the ground state. Collisions of low energy electrons with excited molecules play an important role in explaining the behavior of gas discharges in laser and plasma physics, in planetary atmospheres, stars, and interstellar medium and in plasmas widely used in the fabrication of microelectronics. This explains as to why there is a need for having validated sets of electron impact cross sections for different processes. This work reviews the subject of electron collisions with vibrationally and electronically excited molecules in a comprehensive way. The survey has been carried out for a few excited molecules such as H₂, D₂, T₂, HD, HT, DT, N₂, O₂, and CO₂.