Scattering of Spin-1/2 Particles from Unpolarised Targets

Abstract

A general method for describing the scattering of polarised spin-1/2 particles from unpolarised targets is presented. The reduced density matrix formalism is used to define a new set of parameters sigma u, S P, SA, Ty, Tx, Tz, U xz, and Uzx, which contain the maximum possible information about a scattering process, in which the target is unpolarised and only the scattered particles and their polarisation are observed. For the special case of scattering from targets with vanishing total angular momentum, the number of independent variables can be further reduced to the standard set of observables sigma , S, T and U given, for instance, by Kessler (1985). Numerical results for the new parameters are presented for inelastic electron scattering from xenon and mercury atoms.

Department(s)

Physics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0953-4075

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 1988 Institute of Physics - IOP Publishing, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jul 1988

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