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    Quantum Theory of Scattering
    Quantum Theory of Scattering
    Quantum Theory of Scattering
    Ebook864 pages7 hours

    Quantum Theory of Scattering

    By Ta-you Wu and Takashi Ohmura

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    This volume addresses the broad formal aspects and applications of the quantum theory of scattering in atomic and nuclear collisions. An encyclopedic source of pioneering work, it serves as a text for students and a reference for professionals in the fields of chemistry, physics, and astrophysics. The self-contained treatment begins with the general theory of scattering of a particle by a central field. Subsequent chapters explore particle scattering by a non-central field, collisions between composite particles, the time-dependent theory of scattering, and nuclear reactions. An examination of dispersion relations concludes the text. Numerous graphs, tables, and footnotes illuminate each chapter, in addition to helpful appendixes and bibliographies.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateJan 15, 2014
    ISBN9780486320694
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      Quantum Theory of Scattering - Ta-you Wu

      Quantum Theory of Scattering

      Ta-You Wu

      Takashi Ohmura

      Bibliographical Note

      iThis Dover edition, first published in 2011, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1962 by Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. An Errata List has been added to this edition.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Wu, Ta-you.

      Quantum theory of scattering/Ta-you Wu, Takashi Ohmura. — Dover ed.

      p. cm.

      Originally published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962.

      Summar: This volume addresses aspects and applications of the quantum theory of scattering in atomic and nuclear collisions. An encyclopedic source of pioneering work, it serves as a self-contained text and reference for students and professionals in the fields of chemistry, physics, and astrophysics. Numerous graphs, tables, footnotes, appendices, and bibliographies. 1962 edition — Provided by publisher.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN-13: 978-0-486-48089-3 (pbk.)

      ISBN-10: 0-486-48089-5 (pbk.)

      1. Quantum scattering. I. Ohmura, Taskashi. II. II. Title.

      QC794.6.S3W79 2011

      530.12—dc22

      2010052832

      Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

      48089501

      www.doverpublications.com

      Dedicated to our teachers and friends:

      Professor Emeritus Harrison M. Randall, University of Michigan

      Professor Yu-Tai Yao, University of Peking

      Professor Takahiko Yamanouchi, University of Tokyo

      Preface

      The study of collision processes has been a very important field of physics. A knowledge of the properties of atomic and molecular collisions is of basic importance in many fields, such as the properties of gases, the theory of chemical reactions and collision processes in astrophysics. In the case of the atomic nuclei, most of our present knowledge about nuclear interactions has come from the study of nuclear collision processes. During the last ten years or so, there have been considerable developments in the theory of scattering, both in its general and formal aspects and in its applications. There have appeared recently a number of excellent articles, some of a monograph nature, on many aspects of atomic and nuclear collisions. However, a general text introducing to the less initiated the main ideas and methods of the scattering theory seems to be still lacking. The object of the present volume is to provide such a text.

      The general plan of the present work is more fully described in the Introduction, and the choice of the topics in the Table of Contents. The inclusions and omissions have been governed partly by the familiarity and the limitations of the authors and partly by the predetermined size of the volume. An attempt has been made to present the various topics in an elementary way, but with sufficient details to make the accounts a useful introduction. In many cases, the original papers have been followed closely to make easier their further study by the reader. Different approaches to the same result have been included in some cases, for it is believed that, in a text of this nature, instructiveness takes precedence over conciseness and elegance.

      There are places where the arrangement of material is somewhat awkward (for example, the treatment of the S matrix is spread out over a few sections), but it is hoped that with the cross references in the text and with the help of the index, the reader will find the relevant subsections or paragraphs on a given topic.

      A list of references is given at the end of each section. From these the reader can find fuller treatments and further references to the literature. In some cases the authors may have inadvertently failed to refer to some important contributions. For this they ask the forgiveness of all authors.

      The authors wish to express their appreciation to Dr. Harry E. Moses for reading a few sections of the manuscript and offering many useful comments.

      T. Y. WU

      National Research Council of Canada

      T. OHMURA

      Department of Physics

      Tokyo University

      Contents

      1 GENERAL THEORY OF SCATTERING OF A PARTICLE BY A CENTRAL FIELD

      A. PARTIAL WAVE ANALYSIS

      1. FAXEN-HOLTZMARK’S THEORY

      2. OPTICAL THEOREM

      3. PHASE SHIFTS

      4. RESONANCE SCATTERING

      5. SCATTERING MATRIX

      6. SCATTERING BY A COULOMB FIELD

      7. DELAY-TIME, OR COLLISION LIFETIME, MATRIX

      8. SPREADING OF A WAVE PACKET IN SCATTERING

      B. INTEGRAL EQUATION FOR SCATTERING

      1. INTRODUCTION: GREEN’S FUNCTION

      2. SOLUTION OF INTEGRAL EQUATION

      C. BORN AND OTHER APPROXIMATIONS

      1. BORN APPROXIMATIONS FROM THE PHASE SHIFTS

      2. BORN APPROXIMATIONS AS SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATIONS

      3. CONVERGENCE OF THE BORN EXPANSION

      4. VALIDITY OF THE BORN APPROXIMATION

      5. HIGH-ENERGY APPROXIMATION OF MOLIÈRE

      6. SEMICLASSICAL APPROXIMATION

      D. VARIATIONAL METHODS

      1. HULTHÉN’S METHOD

      2. SCHWINGER’S METHOD

      3. GENERAL FORMULATION OF THE VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE

      i. Scattering Amplitude

      ii. More General Cases

      iii. Relation of the Schwinger Method to the Other Methods

      E. SLOW COLLISIONS: THEORY OF SCATTERING LENGTH AND EFFECTIVE RANGE

      1. SCATTERING LENGTH AND EFFECTIVE RANGE FOR SHORT-RANGED POTENTIAL V(r)

      2. EFFECTIVE RANGE CHARACTERIZED BY THE BOUND STATE

      3. VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE FOR THE SCATTERING LENGTH

      4. VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE FOR THE EFFECTIVE RANGE

      APPENDICES TO SECTION E

      E1. PHOTO-TRANSITIONS FROM THE BOUND STATE

      E2. BREMSSTRAHLUNG

      E3. EFFECTIVE RANGE THEORY OF SHORT-RANGE POTENTIAL PLUS COULOMB POTENTIAL

      E4. QUANTUM DEFECT METHOD

      F. S MATRIX AND BOUND STATES, VIRTUAL AND DECAYING STATES

      1. BOUND STATES

      2. VIRTUAL STATES

      3. DECAYING STATES

      G. DETERMINATION OF V(r) FROM THE SCATTERING DATA

      1. DETERMINATION OF δι from σ(ϑ)

      i. Exact Calculation of δι(k)from σ(ϑ, k)

      ii. Qualitative Relations between the Phase Shifts δι and σ(ϑ)

      2. DETERMINATION OF V(r) FROM THE PHASE SHIFTS

      i. Brief Statements of Results

      ii. Elementary Theory of Gel’fand and Levitan

      APPENDIX 1

      GENERALIZED THEORY OF GEL’FAND-LEVITAN: METHOD OF SPECTRAL WEIGHT FUNCTION

      i Spectral Weight Function W

      ii. Inverse Problem: Determination of Potential V from W

      iii. Remarks

      APPENDIX 2

      AMDUR’S DETERMINATION OF INTERATOMIC POTENTIAL FROM MEASURED SCATTERING CROSS SECTIONS

      2 SCATTERING OF A PARTICLE BY A NON-CENTRAL FIELD

      H. SCATTERING BY TENSOR AND L · S POTENTIAL: PARTIAL WAVE ANALYSIS

      1. PRELIMINARIES

      2. PARTIAL WAVE AND PHASE SHIFT ANALYSIS

      3. SCATTERING MATRIX REPRESENTATION: REAL PHASE SHIFTS

      I. SCATTERING BY TENSOR AND L · S FIELDS: BORN APPROXIMATION

      1. BORN APPROXIMATION FROM THE EXACT THEORY

      2. BORN APPROXIMATION FROM PLANE WAVES

      J. POLARIZATION EFFECTS

      1. FORMAL DESCRIPTION OF POLARIZATION EFFECT

      Particles

      ii. Double-Scattering

      2. SCATTERING AMPLITUDE IN TERMS OF PHASE SHIFTS

      PARTICLES

      4. MORE COMPLICATED CASES

      5. POLARIZATION IN BORN APPROXIMATION. SCATTERING BY SPIN-ORBIT POTENTIAL

      K. NUCLEON-NUCLEON SCATTERING

      1. LOW ENERGY DATA

      i. Deuteron, Ground State Properties

      ii. Proton–Neutron Scattering

      iii. Proton–Proton Scattering

      2. HIGH ENERGY NUCLEON–NUCLEON SCATTERING

      3. NUCLEON–NUCLEON POTENTIAL

      i. Gammel-Thaler Potential

      iii. Signell-Marshak Potential

      3 COLLISION BETWEEN COMPOSITE PARTICLES

      L. SCATTERING OF AN ELECTRON BY HYDROGEN ATOM

      1. DIRECT SCATTERING

      2. EXCHANGE SCATTERING

      3. SCATTERING INVOLVING NONDISTINGUISHABLE PARTICLES

      4. BORN APPROXIMATION

      5. VARIATIONAL METHOD: ELASTIC SCATTERING

      i. General Formulation

      ii. Hartree-Fock Approximation

      iii. Electron–Electron Correlation

      iv. Polarization Potential

      v. Resumé of Variational Calculations of Scattering Lengths

      6. EXPERIMENTAL WORK ON ELECTRON-HYDROGEN SCATTERING

      M. SCATTERING INVOLVING REARRANGEMENTS

      1. INTEGRAL EQUATION FORMALISM (LIPPMANN)

      2. GERJUOY’S THEORY

      3. SCATTERING TREATED BY A SYSTEM OF DIFFERENTIAL-INTEGRAL EQUATIONS

      i. Born Approximation

      ii. Distorted Wave Approximation

      iii. Two-State Approximation

      iv. Introduction of Exchange

      v. Modified Wave Number Method

      4. SEMI-CLASSICAL (IMPACT PARAMETER AND ADIABATIC) METHODS

      i. High Velocity

      En − Eo

      5. PERTURBED STATIONARY STATE or MOLECULAR WAVE FUNCTION METHOD

      i. General Formulation

      ii. Two-State Approximation

      iii. Semi-Classical Approximation

      iv. Resonance, or Exchange, Scattering

      6. RESUMÉ OF COLLISIONS BETWEEN PARTICLES

      N. SCATTERING OF A PARTICLE BY A SYSTEM OF PARTICLES

      1. COMPLEX POTENTIAL AND OPTICAL MODEL

      i. Complex Potential

      ii. Inelastic Scattering and Generalized Optical Theorem

      2. THEORY OF MULTIPLE SCATTERING OF WATSON

      i. General Theory of Multiple Scattering

      ii. Scattering of a Charged Particle by an Atom

      3. THEORY OF MULTIPLE SCATTERING (OF A PARTICLE THROUGH A FOIL)

      i. Theory of Goudsmit and Saunderson

      ii. Evaluation of Qι and f(ϑ)

      4. IMPULSE APPROXIMATION

      4 TIME-DEPENDENT THEORY OF SCATTERING

      O. METHODS OF UNITARY OPERATOR AND OF GREEN’S FUNCTION

      1. DIRAC’S METHOD OF VARIATION OF CONSTANTS,

      2. METHOD OF UNITARY (TIME-TRANSLATION) OPERATOR

      3. METHOD OF GREEN’S FUNCTION

      i. Unperturbed System Ho

      ii. Perturbed System H = Ho + V

      P. TIME-DEPENDENT THEORY OF SCATTERING: VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF LIPPMANN AND SCHWINGER

      1. SCATTERING OPERATOR S AND VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE

      2. TRANSITION PROBABILITY

      3. TRANSITION OPERATOR T AND VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE

      4. REACTION OPERATOR K AND VARIATIONAL PRINCIPLE

      5. CROSS SECTION FOR THE SCATTERING BY A CENTRAL FIELD

      6. K MATRIX AND EQUATION OF RADIATION DAMPING OF HEITLER

      Q. TIME-DEPENDENT THEORY OF SCATTERING: TREATMENT OF GELLMAN AND GOLDBERGER

      1. TRANSITION PROBABILITY AND ADIABATIC SWITCHING

      2. UNITARY OPERATOR, WAVE OPERATOR AND SCATTERING OPERATOR

      3. SCATTERING BY TWO POTENTIALS

      i. Transition Matrix Element

      ii. Ingoing Wave as Final State

      iii. Pick-Up Process

      4. REARRANGEMENT COLLISIONS

      R. TIME-DEPENDENT THEORY: METHOD OF SPECTRAL REPRESENTATION

      1. SPECTRAL REPRESENTATION

      2. SCATTERING

      3. SCATTERING OPERATOR S

      i. Unitary of S

      ii. Reciprocity Theorem

      4. TRANSITION PROBABILITY

      5. ADIABATIC SWITCHING

      6. EQUIVALENCE OF STATIONARY-STATE AND TIME-DEPENDENT METHODS

      S. MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF SCATTERING OPERATOR

      1. AXIOMATIC TREATMENT

      2. VALIDITY OF THE TWO ASSUMPTIONS

      3. CENTRAL POTENTIAL

      5 NUCLEAR REACTIONS

      T. RESONANCE REACTIONS

      1. EMPIRICAL FACTS

      2. COMPOUND NUCLEUS MODEL

      3. ELASTIC SCATTERING OF S-WAVE NEUTRONS

      4. CONDITION OF RESONANCE

      5. CONNECTION WITH DECAY WIDTH Γd

      6. REACTION WIDTH

      7. THE BREIT-WIGNER DISPERSION FORMULA

      8. GENERAL BEHAVIOR OF THE CROSS SECTION

      9. MANY-LEVEL FORMULA OF KAPUR AND PEIERLS

      U. OPTICAL MODEL

      1. SQUARE WELL MODEL

      2. CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ACTUAL SCATTERING AMPLITUDE AND THE AVERAGE AMPLITUDE

      3. OPTICAL POTENTIAL WITH DIFFUSE BOUNDARY

      V. DEUTERON STRIPPING REACTION AND OTHER DIRECT PROCESSES

      1. (p, d) REACTION

      2. (d, p) REACTION

      3. DIRECT PROCESSES

      6 SCATTERING MATRIX S AND DERIVATIVE MATRIX R

      W. SCATTERING MATRIX S

      1. DEFINITION

      2. UNITARITY OF S MATRIX

      3. SYMMETRY OF S MATRIX

      i. Time-Reversal

      ii. Reciprocity Relation

      iii. Detailed Balance Theorem

      iv. Parity Conservation

      4. THE GENERAL FORMULA FOR DIFFERENTIAL CROSS SECTIONS

      5. COLLISION LIFETIME MATRIX Q AND DELAY TIME MATRIX Δt

      X. THE R OR DERIVATIVE, MATRIX

      1. INTRODUCTION: ONE-CHANNEL CASE

      2. GENERAL FORMULA: MANY-CHANNEL REACTIONS

      3. INTERPRETATION OF THE FORMULA

      4. ANGULAR DISTRIBUTION IN THE ONE-LEVEL-APPROXIMATION

      7 DISPERSION RELATIONS

      Y. DISPERSION RELATION AND CAUSALITY IN OPTICS: OBSERVATIONS OF THE KRONIG AND KRAMERS

      1. SOME MATHEMATICAL PRELIMINARIES

      i. Cauchy’s Integral Theorem

      ii. Analytical Continuation

      iii. Hilbert Transforms and Dispersion Relations

      iv. Fourier Transforms, Causal Transform

      v. Analytic Poisson Formula, Causal Factor

      vi. Dispersion Relations for the Function f(ω) that may diverge as ω → ∞, and is not itself a causal transform

      2. DISPERSION RELATION FOR INDEX OF REFRACTION

      3. DISPERSION RELATION FOR SCATTERING OF LIGHT: CAUSALITY

      Z. DISPERSION RELATIONS: SCATTERING BY A POTENTIAL

      1. SCATTERING OF A SCALAR PARTICLE OF ZERO REST MASS

      2. DISPERSION RELATIONS IN NON-RELATIVISTIC THEORY

      3. SCATTERING OF AN ELECTRON BY A HYDROGEN ATOM

      4. MANDELSTAM REPRESENTATION FOR POTENTIAL SCATTERING

      i. Analyticity in the t-plane excluding the cut

      ii. Mandelstam Representation

      iii. Determination of the function ρ from the Unitarity Condition

      INDEX

      Introduction

      The subject of the scattering, or collision, between particles is a very large one, in both the more theoretical aspects and the applications to many fields of physics, chemistry and astrophysics. A comprehensive account of the status of this large subject up to about 1947 has been given by Mott and Massey in their well-known work The Theory of Atomic Collisions. In the last fifteen years or so, there have been great developments in many directions in the subject, namely, the general theories of scattering, many technical aspects of the theory, and the experimental studies in nuclear and atomic collisions. Many of these theoretical and experimental advances have been the result of their mutual stimulations. We shall try, in the following, to make a brief survey of these recent developments, thereby making clearer the plan of the present work.

      Up to about 1948 when the high energy accelerators opened up the field of elementary particle physics, one of the main interests in experimental and theoretical nuclear physics was the study of nucleon-nucleon scattering and the deduction of some information concerning the law of nucleon-nucleon interaction from the scattering data. These studies have led directly to the following theoretical developments. From the analysis of the low energy proton-proton scattering data, Breit and his associates, and later on Blatt, Jackson, Bethe and others, found the methods of the scattering length and of the effect range (§ E), which were first derived from Schwinger’s variational principle in the present form (§ D). The problem of deducing a potential from the observed phase shifts (which are obtained from the scattering cross sections σ(ϑ) on the basis of the theory of scattering) has led to many mathematical investigations, culminating in the Gel’fand-Levitan integral equation (§ G). On the more technical side, the theories of scattering by non-central (tensor and L · S) fields and of the polarization of nucleons by scattering have been worked out (§§ H, I, J). These theories have in turn led to the many scattering and polarization experiments. In the absence of a completely satisfactory (meson field theoretic) theory of nuclear forces, the phenomenological two-nucleon potentials deduced from these empirical data constitute in a large measure our present knowledge about the nucleon-nucleon interaction (§ K).

      Also on the technical side, considerable progress has been made by Hulthén, Schwinger, Kohn and others, in the developments of various forms of the variational method for the solution of the scattering problem (§ D). Recently some stationary properties of the scattering length and the effective range have been formulated (§ E). Investigations have been made of the convergence of the most often used Born approximations (§§ B, C).

      In the general theory of scattering, the scattering, or collision, or simply the S matrix has been introduced by Wheeler, Heisenberg and developed by a large number of authors (§§ A, F, P, Q, R, S, W). In the theory of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, the unitary operator method (§ O) has been further developed, and various variational principles, the relation with the S operator, transition probabilities and the Schrödinger (time-independent) integral equation for scattering in general, have been established by Lippmann, Schwinger, Gell-Mann, Goldberger and others (§§ P, Q). The time-dependent equation has also been studied by Friedrichs in a more mathematical manner in terms of spectral representations (§ R). The rigorous mathematical proof of the existence and the unitarity of the S matrix has been given for some classes of interactions (§ S). With the Green’s function, the theory developed by Feynman has played a basic role in the advances in the field theory of quantum electrodynamics (§ O).

      In the last decade, a great deal of experimental work has been done on various types of nuclear reactions. A large category of reactions, most of which characterized by a resonance effect (i.e., the presence of maxima in the cross sections for certain sharply defined energies of the incident particle), is best interpreted on the basis of the compound nucleus theory of Bohr (§ T). There are other reactions which, from the observed angular distribution of the scattered particle, are best interpreted as direct reactions in the sense that the incident particle does not form a compound nucleus with the target particle but interacts only with the nucléons near the nuclear surface (§ V). There are other types of nuclear reactions, such as the Coulomb excitation, which we shall not treat in the present work.

      For the direct reactions such as the stripping and the pickup processes, the theoretical treatment is usually by means of the Born approximation. But for the more general case of the collision between a nucleón and a nucleus, a phenomenological approach has been developed in which the interaction between the incident and the target particle is represented by a complex potential. The imaginary part of this potential is to describe the absorption due to inelastic scattering (§§ N, U). The application of such a potential, with adjustable (energy-dependent) parameters in the shapes and depths in the central and the (L · S) potentials in both the real and the imaginary part, to a large amount of experimental data has been carried out in the last few years.

      A much more general method than this for describing scattering in general (including nuclear reactions) is the method of the S matrix (§§ A, P, Q, R, S, W). But for scattering in general and for nuclear reactions involving the compound nucleus in particular, a still more general method is that of the R matrix of Wigner and Eisenbud. The philosophy of this theory is roughly as follows. On account of the lack of knowledge about the detailed processes going on inside a nucleus in a reaction, the theory will not deal with these details inside the nucleus, but will express the properties (wave functions) inside the nucleus by means of the R matrix whose elements are functions of certain energies, their widths and the nuclear radius pertaining to the nucleus for a particle channel (mode) of the reaction. These quantities are taken to be adjustable parameters. The theory expressing the cross sections of the reactions in terms of R then relates the cross sections to these parameters (§§ T, X). The theory does not depend on any detailed models for the reaction mechanisms and is hence very general. But in a way it is also formal rather than physical (in the classical sense).

      A still more general approach to the problem of collision is the recent theory of dispersion relations. These relations were discovered in 1926–27 by Kronig and Kramers and, in the case of the dispersion of light, consist of relations connecting the real and the imaginary parts of the index of refraction. The extension to the case of potential scattering recently (1954) made by Goldberger, Gell-Mann and Thirring has opened up a most active field in the last few years. The dispersion relations are then relations connecting the imaginary part of the scattering amplitude in the forward direction and an integral containing the total cross section for all energies. Relations for the scattering amplitude in other than the forward directions have also been found. The great importance of these dispersion relations lies in their generality; they do not depend on any specific assumptions about the interactions but only on some general principles such as the physically plausible one of causality. They have been of the greatest interest in connection with the scattering involving elementary particles (such as pion–nucleon scattering) for which a detailed knowledge of their interaction is still absent. It is beyond the scope of the work to take up this rapidly developing field, but an account of the historical origin and the derivation of the dispersion relations for the potential scattering of a non-relativistic particle is included in §§ Y, Z.

      Now, coming back to the more familiar fields of atomic and molecular collisions, while there have been no really new fundamental developments, we can still count some progress. Thus the low energy electron-hydrogen scattering has been measured with great accuracy with the advanced techniques now available on the one hand, and has been calculated also with great refinements by the variational method and the method of scattering length on the other (§ L). This problem is of interest in that it is, in the theory of scattering, next in simplicity (or complexity) to the two-body (electron-proton) problem, just as the helium atom is to the hydrogen atom in the bound state problem.

      Of great interest and importance in the fields of gaseous chemical reactions, the excitation, ionization, dissociation and recombination processes in the upper atmosphere of the earth, and of astrophysics, is a large category of collisions involving an electron and an atom (or a molecule) or two atoms (or molecules). In recent years, a large amount of studies of various approximate methods and of calculations of some simpler processes have been carried out, notably by Massey, Bates and their associates. Unfortunately, the nature of the problem is such that, with the present experience, it is still difficult to know with accuracy the errors of the various approximations in. a given specific case. The various approximate methods are given, together with a bibliography of this subject, in Sect. M.

      In the problems of the scattering of a particle by a system of particles, the theory of Watson on multiple scattering is important in the introduction of an optical potential and of the scattering operator (§ N) which plays a basic role in the theory of Brueckner of the many-body system. There is another problem of multiple scattering which deals with the scattering of a charged particle in going through a thin foil. The theory is of importance in the analysis of the scattering of cosmic ray particles in slabs of matter. A short account of the recent theoretical work is given in Sect. N.

      There are many topics in the field of scattering that have not been covered in the present work. The most conspicuous omission is the scattering involving the various elementary particles. The reasons for this omission are that (i) the processes involve generally the creation or annihilation of these particles and they should be treated by the quantized field theories rather than the (non-relativistic) quantum mechanics used in the present work; (ii) both the experimental and the theoretical literature are very extensive and the authors are not familiar enough with them to write about them.

      Another interesting and important topic that has not been treated is the energy dependence of reactions (nuclear or atomic) in the neighborhood of the threshold. Wigner has obtained the energy dependence for various types of processes by the use of the R matrix theory, and these results are general, quite independent of any detailed calculations. To this work only a reference has been made in Sect. M, references 75–82 and on pp. 378–79.

      There are other omissions. The present work has been prepared, not as a monograph, but as a text introducing the student to some of the recent developments in a very broad field. The emphasis has been on the basic ideas and methods for treating various types of problems, and not on the actual applications, nor on the experimental investigations. For those who wish to go deeper into any particular topics, references have been made, at the end of each section, to the many recent monographs and review articles. In view of the availability of the extensive bibliographies given in these references, it is hoped that the omissions of topics and the lack of judicious judgment in the choice of references will not really harm the serious student.

      ERRATA

      chapter 1

      General Theory of Scattering of a Particle by a Central Field

      The simplest collision processes are the scattering of a particle A by a potential field V(r) and the elastic scattering of a particle of kind A with a given momentum by a target particle B. We wish to know the relative probabilities of the particle A being scattered in various directions. It is obvious that these probabilities are determined by the field V(r) or the interaction V(rAB) between the two particles. The mathematical theory of scattering enables us to deduce these probabilities from a given V(r) or V(rAB) and conversely, to deduce some information concerning V(r), or V(rAB), from the experimentally observed scattering cross sections.

      In this chapter, we will confine ourselves to (i) the stationary-state method of treating the scattering problem, and (ii) the case where the interaction V between the two particles is central, i.e., V = V(|rA − rB|) = V(rAB).#

      Let a particle of mass m, energy E,

      be scattered by a central field of potential V(r). The Schrôdinger equation of the particle is

      We seek a solution of (A2) which asymptotically represents an incident plane wave (along the z-direction) and a spherical outgoing (scattered) wave

      where ϑ is the angle between the direction of the scattered wave (k’) and the original direction karound k does not appear because of the symmetry of V(r). The intensity of the scattered wave in the solid angle dΩ. = sin ϑ dϑ is proportional to

      As f(ϑ) defined by (A3) has the dimension of length, we can define (A4) as the differential cross section

      and the total cross section

      σ gives a measure of the total probability that the particle of energy E is scattered in any way by the field V(r). The problem is to find f(ϑ) in terms of the potential V(r). The importance of this theory is that on the basis of the theoretical relation between f(ϑ) and V(r), it is possible to deduce some information about V(r) from the experimentally measured σ(ϑ).

      Equation (A5) is usually derived in the following manner. The flux of scattered particle (i.e., the number of particles per unit time) through a large sphere of radius R within the solid angle dΩ, is

      On substituting,

      into (A5a) we get

      .

      The differential cross section is obtained if F dof the incident particle.

      This procedure is, however, only permissible when there is no interference between the incident wave (eikz) and the scattered wave. Under the usual experimental conditions, this interference can be neglected at the point of observation. The incident beam goes through narrow slits and must be represented by a wave packet restricted in the x–y plane. Accordingly, the scattering amplitude calculated on the approximation of an incident plane wave is good only when the slit width d (i.e., the width of the incident beam) is larger than the wavelength λ , and the incident wave will reach the detector when placed within the angle ~λ(2πd). If d is smaller than the size of the target or than the range of interaction, the value of f(ϑ) thus obtained will be quite different from the value of f(ϑ) derived from the plane wave assumption.

      The angle λ/(2πd) in usual experimental conditions is so small that we can safely assume that the incident wave does not fall on the detector. For example, let d be equal to 0.01 cm. The angle is about x−½ × 10−6 radian for x eV electrons, and about y−½ × 10−10 radian for y MeV nucléons (protons or neutrons).

      However, the interference between the incident (approximately plane) wave and the scattered wave at the vicinity of the target (not at the position of detector) is very important in quantum mechanical scattering phenomena. This effect has been included in determining the scattering amplitude f hence it is sufficient to consider f alone. Shadow scattering (see Sect. T.8) is caused by interference of this nature near the black body.

      It is clear that the scattering of one particle by another, both having no internal degrees of freedom (except for spin) and interacting according to a potential V(r12), can be described by (A2) for the relative coordinate r = r12, where m is now the reduced mass and E the energy of relative motion. It is by means of this theory and the theory discussed in the next chapter that one attempts to arrive at some conclusions concerning the interaction V(r1 − r2) between two nucleons from the scattering data.

      # It is assumed that V(r) is such that rV(r) → 0 as r → ∞ (see Sect. A.6), and, if attractive, r² V(r)→0 as r → 0 (for the existence of a solution). See further conditions on V(r) in Sect. A.3.

      section A

      Partial Wave Analysis

      1. FAXEN-HOLTZMARK’S THEORY

      The following method was first suggested by Faxen and Holtzmark, and is analogous to a method devised by Lord Rayleigh in the classical theory of scattering: f(ϑ), being a function of ϑ, can be expanded in terms of the Legendre polynomials

      where the coefficient ai, in general complex, is to be found in terms of V(r). Let us also expand the incident plane wave in terms of P1 (cos ϑ)

      For large distances r, the asymptotic behavior of the Bessel function leads to

      On putting

      Now, since V(r) is spherically symmetric (and hence axially symmetric about kin (A2) can be put in the form#

      where uι(r) is given by the equation

      For large r, the two independent solutions of (A13) behave as rjι(kr) and rnι(kr). We seek a solution uι(r) of (A13) which vanishes at the origin and which, for large r, asymptotically behaves as

      where Aι, Bι are constants and Cι, δι, are simply related to Aι, Bι by

      Putting (A14) into (A12), one obtains

      On identifying (A15) with (A10), one obtains

      On putting this expression for ai in (A7), one obtains

      and (A6) gives

      2. OPTICAL THEOREM

      From (A17), it is seen that f(ϑ) is essentially complex. We may rewrite f(ϑ) in the form

      From (A17), we obtain

      and from (A19), (A17),

      where Im f(ϑ) denotes the coefficient of i in f(ϑ). That f(ϑ) is complex can readily be seen from (A20), since, on putting ϑ = 0, for the imaginary part of the scattered amplitude in the forward direction, we obtain the following important relation

      which does not vanish. (A21) is known as the optical theorem. [For a generalized theorem covering inelastic scatterings, see Chapter 3, (N19).]

      3. PHASE SHIFTS

      All the relations (A17)–(A21) above are exact relations (i.e., involving no approximations). δi represents the phase shift whose meaning is clear from (A14), namely, δi, is the phase difference between the asymptotic solution (A14) of (A13) with suitable normalization and the field-free asymptotic solution υi(r) of

      namely,

      Obviously, δi is determined by the potential V(r). To obtain δi in terms of V(r), we have, from (A13) and (A22),

      or

      By (A14) and (A23), we obtain the following exact relation between δi and the potential V(r)

      In this equation ui(r) is the solution of (A13) that is bounded at the origin r = 0, and that is so normalized that asymptotically for large r,

      Since ui(r) in (A25) contains δi, it would seem that (A25) is of no practical use as far as the calculation of δi is concerned, since by the time ui(r) is found from (A13), δi would already be known. We shall see, however, that a useful approximation can be obtained for δi by replacing ui(r) in (A25) by υi(r). (See Sect. C on Born approximation.)

      The following are explanatory remarks concerning δi:

      i) From (A13) and (A22), it is seen that for an attractive field ui(r) is shifted inward relative to υi(r), and for a repulsive field ui(r) is shifted outward relative to υi(r), i.e.,

      δi > 0 for attractive field,

      δi < 0 for repulsive field.

      ii, where p is the momentum of the particle and ρ the impact parameter. The summation of l in (A17) and (A18) for the partial waves l = 0, 1,. . . in (A7) is equivalent to the integration of all values of the impact parameters in the classical theory.

      iii) For large k and l, the phase shifts can be calculated by the Born approximation [see (C14–C18)]. From (C18), δi is seen to be of order

      where ro is the classical distance of closest approach. For large l, rρ, the impact parameter. The series for the total cross section σ in (A18) behaves, for large l and small δi

      .

      In order that this may converge, U(r) must decrease with distance at a rate which is greater than 1/r².

      iv) For the scattering amplitude in the forward direction, f(0), we have from (A17),

      .

      In order that this may converge, U(ρ) must decrease with distance faster than 1/r³.

      v) For low energy scattering by a potential of the asymptotic form c/rn, the variations of the phase shifts for various l are

      (See ref. 8, p. 403.) For very small energies, only l = 0 (s waves) contribute to the scattering if n ≥ 3. In Sect. L, we shall have an example of n = 4 (potential due to the polarization of a hydrogen atom in the ground state by a charge). There δo ∝ k and δo ∝ k² for l ≥ 1. For short range potential (1/rn, n → ∞), we always have δi ∝ k²l+¹. Thus for small k, δi, decreases with increasing l. The cross section tends to a constant value as k → 0 only for n ≥ 3.

      vi) For low energy scattering by an attractive V(r) having bound states, the variation of δi with the strength of V(r) is discussed in Sect. E.3.

      vii) For scattering by a potential V(r)P, where P is a parity operator [inversion of coordinates about the origin of the coordinate system, see Sect. (H10A)],

      (this, in the case of the collision between two identical particles, corresponds to an exchange of the two particles, i.e., to the Bartlett operator discussed in Sect. H.5), we have

      This has the effect that in obtaining (A13) from (A2), the V(r) in (A13) will have a factor (–1)i. This changes the δi from (A13) for all odd l.#

      4. RESONANCE SCATTERING

      In many reactions involving the collision of a nucleon with a nucleus, it has been found that the reaction cross section has a number of maxima at certain energies of the incident nucleon. This has been interpreted as a resonance phenomenon when the energy of the incident particle is exactly right to excite the compound nucleus (formed by the nucleus and the nucleon) to one of its excited states. We shall take up this problem of resonance in nuclear reactions in Sects. T and X. But the concept of resonance scattering also

      Figure 1. Resonance scattering of a particle by a potential having a decaying state at energy Er.

      enters in the simple problem of the scattering of a particle by a potential. Consider, for example, the collision between an α particle or a proton and a nucleus, the interaction being approximated by an attractive well, surrounded by a Coulomb barrier. In Fig. 1, let the curve represent the effective potential

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