Past exam of the short options paper of the physics Prelims of the University of Oxford / 2019 / S3 / 2 / c

For complete photon backscatter $\theta =\pi$, the electron recoils forward and momentum conservation givesCombining this with conservation of energy and writing $\Delta \lambda ={\lambda }^{\prime }-\lambda$ givesFor $\Delta \lambda \ll \lambda ,{\lambda }^{\prime }$, 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 $\Delta \lambda =(h/m_{e}c)(1-\cos \theta )$, and therefore exactly $2{\lambda }_C$ at backscatter. Agreement at leading order does not make the nonrelativistic derivation exact at arbitrary photon energy.