We performed the calculation of the scattering length for the elastic
collision between the rubidium and cesium atoms. For this we applied a
variational procedure based on the R-matrix theory for unbound states employing
the finite element method (FEM) for expansion of the wave-function in terms of
a finite set of local basis functions. The FEM presents as advantages the
possibility of the development of a efficient matrix inversion algorithm which
significantly reduces the computation time to calculate the R matrix. We also
tested a potential energy curve with spectroscopic accuracy obtained before
from a direct adjustment procedure of experimental data of the
X1Σ+ state based on genetic algorithm. The quality of our result
was evaluated by comparing them with several ones previously published at
literature.Comment: 15 pages, 6 tables and 2 figure