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The Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Science (AMOS) Gateway is a comprehensive cyberinfrastructure for research and educational activities in computational AMO science. The B-Spline atomic R-Matrix (BSR) suite of programs is one of several computer programs currently available on the gateway. It is an excellent example of the gateway’s potential to increase the scientific productivity of AMOS users. While the suite is available to be used in batch mode, its complexity does not make it well-suited to the approach taken in the gateway’s default setup. The complexity originates from the need to execute many different computations and to construct generally complex workflows, requiring numerous input files that must be used in a specific sequence. The BSR graphical user interface described in this paper was developed to considerably simplify employing the BSR codes on the gateway, making BSR available to a large group of researchers and students interested in AMO science. 

Free-electron lasers (FELs) are the world's most brilliant light sources with rapidly evolving technological capabilities in terms of ultrabright and ultrashort pulses over a large range of photon energies. Their revolutionary and innovative developments have opened new fields of science regarding nonlinear light-matter interaction, the investigation of ultrafast processes from specific observer sites, and approaches to imaging matter with atomic resolution. A core aspect of FEL science is the study of isolated and prototypical systems in the gas phase with the possibility of addressing well-defined electronic transitions or particular atomic sites in molecules. Notably for polarization-controlled short-wavelength FELs, the gas phase offers new avenues for investigations of nonlinear and ultrafast phenomena in spin-orientated systems, for decoding the function of the chiral building blocks of life as well as steering reactions and particle emission dynamics in otherwise inaccessible ways. This roadmap comprises descriptions of technological capabilities of facilities worldwide, innovative diagnostics and instrumentation, as well as recent scientific highlights, novel methodology, and mathematical modeling. The experimental and theoretical landscape of using polarization controllable FELs for dichroic light-matter interaction in the gas phase will be discussed and comprehensively outlined to stimulate and strengthen global collaborative efforts of all disciplines. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

Since its initial development in the 1970s by Phil Burke and his collaborators, the R-matrix theory and associated computer codes have become the method of choice for the calculation of accurate data for general electron–atom/ion/molecule collision and photoionization processes. The use of a non-orthogonal set of orbitals based on B-splines, now called the B-spline R-matrix (BSR) approach, was pioneered by Zatsarinny. It has considerably extended the flexibility of the approach and improved particularly the treatment of complex many-electron atomic and ionic targets, for which accurate data are needed in many modelling applications for processes involving low-temperature plasmas. Both the original R-matrix approach and the BSR method have been extended to the interaction of short, intense electromagnetic (EM) radiation with atoms and molecules. Here, we provide an overview of the theoretical tools that were required to facilitate the extension of the theory to the time domain. As an example of a practical application, we show results for two-photon ionization of argon by intense short-pulse extreme ultraviolet radiation. 

We reinvestigate a key process in electron-atom collision physics, the elastic scattering of electrons from helium atoms. Specifically, results from a special-purpose relativistic polarized-orbital method, which is designed to treat elastic scattering only, are compared with those from a very extensive, fully ab initio, general-purpose B-spline R-matrix (close-coupling) code. 

We have applied the full-relativistic Dirac B-Spline R-matrix method to obtain cross sections for electron scattering from ytterbium atoms. The results are compared with those obtained from a semi-relativistic (Breit-Pauli) model-potential approach and the few available experimental data. 

Cross sections for electron scattering from atomic and molecular iodine are calculated based on the R-matrix (close-coupling) method. Elastic and electronic excitation cross sections are presented for both I and I2. The dissociative electron attachment and vibrational excitation cross sections of the iodine molecule are obtained using the local complex potential approximation. Ionization cross sections are also computed for I2 using the BEB model.