FIZIKA A 9 (2000) 1 , 1-8

THE UTILITY OF COMPTON SCATTERING IN DETERMINATION OF ELECTRON MOMENTUM DENSITY

Z. KALIMAN^a, T. SURIĆ^b, K. PISK^b and R. H. PRATT^c

^aFaculty of Philosophy, University of Rijeka, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia

^cDepartment of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, U. S. A.

Received 11 October 1999; Accepted 25 January 2000

We present new insights regarding the validity of the impulse approximation (IA) in determining electron momentum density (EMD) from Compton scattering. These insights are obtained utilizing the code we have recently developed for the full calculation of the triple differential cross-section (TDCS) for Compton scattering. We find that, due to the averaging, at lower energies IA is more accurate for the double differential cross-section (DDCS) than for TDCS. We conclude that at such energies an EMD determination from the DDCS is more accurate than its direct determination through the measurement of the TDCS at the same energy. We also discuss the validity of IA for calculations of other less averaged Compton observables.

PACS numbers: 32.80.Cy
UDC 539.122

Keywords: Compton scattering, electron momentum density, impulse approximation, double differential cross-section, triple differential cross-section

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