Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/ia/paper-4/12c/c/solution

Let the incident and final photon momentum magnitudes be
In a nontrivial collinear collision, the photon is backscattered and the electron moves in the original photon direction, so momentum conservation gives electron momentum . Conservation of relativistic energy gives
Substitute , isolate the square root, and square. Cancellation leaves
Dividing by and using the wavelength definitions gives the Compton scattering shift
The other collinear possibility is the trivial forward solution , in which the electron remains at rest.

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