Talk:Rutherford scattering

Nonworking link

Link to Geiger and Marsden paper does not workYehoshua2 (talk) 04:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

elastic scattering

Agreed, energy is conserved, but surely the velocity of the particle is not. The scattering serves to change the direction of motion of the particle, doesn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew imperial (talk • contribs) 20:58, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Infinite density at Θ=0?

So the cross section turns out to be proportional to this, right?

csc^4(Θ/2)

Csc^4 is infinite at Θ=0, so how does this not lead to an infinite density at the center? For confirmation, Wolfram Alpha gives the integral of csc^4(x) as -1/3 cot(x) (2+csc^2(x)), which is also infinite for x=0. Λυδαcιτγ 03:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The cross section does tend to infinity as the deflection angle goes to zero. Of course. What is the total cross section of a star or a naked nucleus, with a coulombic field around it? Infinite! Anything that goes past will be deflected, and the smaller the deflection, the farther away that can happen. So the gravitational cross section of our Sun is infinite.

Now, this is not true of an atom, ONLY because at large distances and small angles its bare charge is screened by electrons (which the Rutherford equation doesn't take into account). So real atoms (unlike naked Rutherford nuclei) really have finite cross sections to alphas. But again, not from this equation, which doesn't take that screening into account. There really is a "singularity" there, for tiny, tiny deflection angles, tending to zero deflection. The cross section there for that should go to infinite. In this model, it does (in reality, for real atoms, it doesn't). This model fails for very, very small deflection angles and only works well for particles that penetrate fairly closely to the nucleus so they see its full charge. SBHarris 05:24, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I see! Awesome, thanks for the explanation. Λυδαcιτγ 06:13, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There are no diagrams..

Add diagram for better experience 2409:4073:9F:5C27:0:0:614:68A4 (talk) 04:56, 15 December 2021 (UTC)