Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-of-the-physics-prelims-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s3/2/c/solution
Past exam of the short options paper of the physics Prelims of the University of Oxford 2019 S3 2 c Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
For complete photon backscatter , the electron recoils forward and momentum conservation givesCombining this with conservation of energy and writing givesFor , the final ratio is approximately four, soWithin the stated nonrelativistic equations the unsimplified relation is implicit and has higher-order recoil corrections; the displayed final approximation is all that the small-shift assumption supports. Exact relativistic Compton recoil kinematics gives , and therefore exactly at backscatter. Agreement at leading order does not make the nonrelativistic derivation exact at arbitrary photon energy.
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