Scattering theory without large-distance asymptotics

Abstract

In conventional scattering theory, to obtain an explicit result, one imposes a precondition that the distance between target and observer is infinite. With the help of this precondition, one can asymptotically replace the Hankel function and the Bessel function with the sine functions so that one can achieve an explicit result. Nevertheless, after such a treatment, the information of the distance between target and observer is inevitably lost. In this paper, we show that such a precondition is not necessary: without losing any information of distance, one can still obtain an explicit result of a scattering rigorously. In other words, we give an rigorous explicit scattering result which contains the information of distance between target and observer. We show that at a finite distance, a modification factor -- the Bessel polynomial -- appears in the scattering amplitude, and, consequently, the cross section depends on the distance, the outgoing wave-front surface is no longer a sphere, and, besides the phase shift, there is an additional phase (the argument of the Bessel polynomial) appears in the scattering wave function.