Abstract
The low-energy total elastic cross section for electrons scattered by atomic nitrogen is calculated using the R-matrix method. The wavefunction includes all terms of the ground 1s2 2s2 2p3 configuration as well as a 4Pe pseudo-state determined to represent the full atomic ground state polarizability and additional states to represent short-range correlation effects. The low-energy 1s2 2S2 2p4 3Pe shape resonance is found to have Er=0.062 eV and Gamma =0.013 eV and to dominate the cross section below 0.5 eV.