Elastic and Inelastic Scattering
The example of scattering in quantum chemistry is particularly instructive, as the theory is reasonably complex while still having a good foundation on which to build an intuitive understanding. When two atoms are scattered off one another, one can understand them as being the bound state solutions of some differential equation. Thus, for example, the hydrogen atom corresponds to a solution to the Schrödinger equation with a negative inverse-power (i.e., attractive Coulombic) central potential. The scattering of two hydrogen atoms will disturb the state of each atom, resulting in one or both becoming excited, or even ionized. Thus, collisions can be either elastic (the internal quantum states of the particles are not changed) or inelastic (the internal quantum states of the particles are changed). From the experimental viewpoint the observable quantity is the cross section. From the theoretical viewpoint the key quantity is the S matrix.
Read more about this topic: Scattering Theory
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