The Scattering of Many-Particle Systems

Abstract

In the treatment of scattering processes involving more than two particles, one frequently makes use of the impulse approximation to describe the scattering as a superposition of two-body collisions. It is shown that where the impulse approximation is valid, use of the Racah formalism enables one to effect a formal reduction of the many-body process to one involving two bodies. The method is worked out in detail for the three-body problem.