In this chapter, we shall discuss the formulation of scattering of a quantum particle from a potential. Throughout most of this chapter, we shall be interested in the state of the quantum particle for r ≫ a, where a is the range of the potential. Our main focus shall be, following directions from classical scattering theory, on computing the differential scattering cross-section for such a particle. The formalism necessary for this purpose is discussed in §13.1 and §13.2. This is followed by a discussion of the perturbative schemes in §13.3 and partial wave analysis in §13.4. Next, we consider the scattering cross-section due to the long-range Coulomb potential in §13.5.
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