Lecture 21:

Partial Wave Amplitudes and Phase Shifts

Basics about partial wave analysis for spherically symmetric systems

(decomposing scattering solutions into different angular momentum components)

Example: Quantum hard-sphere scattering

Quantum scattering amplitudes in terms of phase shifts

Optical Theorem

Spherically symmetric systems: General properties of eigenstates Separation of variables

radial time-independent Schrodinger equation

centrifugal potential

with

E>0

Asymptotic behavior of the radial Schrodinger equation

Assuming r >> the range of the scattering potential, then:

General solution is
spherical Bessel function spherical Neumann function

See Griffiths, Chap.4

But for a scattering solution, as our early general results show: We must ensure

(boundary-condition matching)

spherical Hankel function of the first kind

Continued on the next slide

Continuing the previous slide For fixed E, we could have many solutions with different angular momentum quantum number But note: their arbitrary superpositions are also an eigenstate of the same eigenvalue E. The scattering solution as an eigenstate of H with energy E, connected with an incoming state along z with energy E, for regimes away from the scattering potential, can hence be written as:

Exact solutions can then be found by connecting this solution with the solution in the scattering region.

Simplifying and rewriting the scattering solution when r is large:

Because is symmetric with , so all the terms due to the scattering potential should be independent of . Hence:
Legendre polynomial

called partial wave amplitudes

Finding the scattering amplitude f() from partial wave amplitudes

large r

partial wave amplitude

continued on the next slide

Continuing the previous slide:

So the total cross section is given by

So how to determine the partial wave amplitudes? -- general strategy

Using Rayleighs plane wave expansion

With this expression all in spherical coordinates, try to smoothly connect this solution to the wavefunction in the scattering region and then find the partial scattering amplitudes.

So give me an example of exact partial wave amplitudes? -- hard-sphere scattering

The potential at the surface of the sphere can be regarded as infinitely high. So the wavefunction should be zero at the surface of the sphere (r=b) for any

continued on the next slide

Continuing the previous slide

If kb<< 1 (low energy scattering):

decays very fast with exponent 2l+1 which is the total surface area of the sphere !

Rewriting the scattering solution in terms of phase shifts:

For large r:

wave propagating towards origin

wave propagating away from the origin continued on the next slide

Continuing the previous slide For our elastic scattering here, total probability should be conserved, so the probability of propagating out should equal that of propagating in:

called phase shift

Example: scattering phase shifts of hard sphere scattering

here

Scattering amplitudes in terms of phase shifts

Optical Theorem:

The total cross section for a spherically symmetric scattering potential is EXACTLY given by the imaginary part of the forward scattering amplitude times 4/k

This theorem can be extended to inelastic scattering cases as well. It is in fact a very general law of wave scattering theory.

Summary:
We outlined how to use partial waves to find the exact solutions of a quantum scattering problem. We dont really have any new concepts here: for spherically symmetric systems we should focus on individual wavefunction components with different angular momenta; and to exactly solve the Schrodinger equation we need to consider boundary conditions and then patch wavefunctions at different regions together.

In many cases, a quantum scattering problem can be solved numerically. Terms like phase shifts, partial wave amplitudes will be very useful for understanding (and extracting information from) quantum scattering codes.