EPJ D Topical review - Wigner scattering theory for systems held together by Coulombic forces

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Published on 11 June 2020

Originally developed and formulated for nuclear scattering, Wigner’s theory is extremely general, with application in many branches of physics. Atomic Physics often makes use of an apparently separate formalism (MQDT) which is in fact a specialisation of Wigner’s theory. In a new Topical Review article published in EPJD, Jean-Patrick Connerade (Imperial College London, UK and and European Academy EASAL, France) discusses the relevance of Wigner Scattering theory and in particular its K-matrix formulation for all systems held together by coulombic forces, including not only atoms and molecules but also clusters.

The advantage of the K-matrix is that analytic expressions can be given for interactions between resonances in terms of a meromorphic pole structure in the special case of asymptotically coulombic potentials. By using the K-matrix, a number of novel effects (q-reversals, vanishing radiative and particle widths, vanishing fluctuations, etc.) are understood as general phenomena.

This article is part of the Topical Issue Atomic Cluster Collisions (2019).