Inelastic Scattering at Low Energies

At low incident energies, the Born approximation is not valid, and we need more accurate methods of calculating. The problem is more difficult than in the elastic scattering case since an inelastically scattered particle cannot be considered to be moving in an equivalent static potential. Thus we must remain with the manybody Hamiltonian (17-1) and develop approximate methods of solution. Such approximate methods exist, and are discussed in Mott and Massey, ¹ Chapters 12-15, 17. We shall confine ourselves to the simplest of these, the distorted wave approximation.