Born Approximation

In scattering theory and, in particular in quantum mechanics, the Born approximation consists of taking the incident field in place of the total field as the driving field at each point in the scatterer. Born approximation is named after Max Born, winner of the 1954 Nobel Prize for physics.

It is the perturbation method applied to scattering by an extended body. It is accurate if the scattered field is small, compared to the incident field, in the scatterer.

For example, the radar scattering of radio waves by a light styrofoam column can be approximated by assuming that each part of the plastic is polarized by the same electric field that would be present at that point without the column, and then calculating the scattering as a radiation integral over that polarization distribution.