Abstract
The dipole approximation of the nonrelativistic cross section for Compton scattering by electrons bound in the ground state of a hydrogenlike atom, obtained by the present author, is computed and discussed. In this approximation the cross-section differential with respect to the angles and energy of the scattered photon is proportional to C1+C2cos2θ, where θ is the scattering angle of the photon. The coefficients C1, C2 are combinations of Appell functions F1, depending on the atomic number Z and the energies of the initial and final photons κ1, κ2 by means of the dimensionless variables ki=κiZ2R, i=1, 2, where R is the rydberg. In order to compute the Appell functions, these were first continued analytically and expressed in terms of other hypergeometric functions of two variables, which under our circumstances admit convergent series expansions. These were then summed numerically. The incident photon energies considered lie in the interval 1.05k120. For each value k1 the coefficients C1 and C2 were computed for a number of values of k2 (0k2k11). Special attention was given to the end points k2=0 and k2=k1. C1 and C2 turn out to be monotonically decreasing functions of k2 presenting the infrared-divergent behavior 1k2 for k20. The limitations of the result due to retardation corrections are considered.