Talk:Born approximation
 | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
.jpg?lang=en){kind=small}
 | This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. (September 2010) |
Untitled
[edit]Maybe I should break two potentials off and make it a separate article, since it does not always involve Born approximations, but that is enough for now.
No link to/from Max Born? --131.252.214.20 (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the accoustic equations are easier to understand than this quantum stuff. TimmmmCam (talk) 11:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
This article needs some improvements. I plan to do it in the scope of quantum mechanics. I do not have good references for using this approximation in acoustics or optics. Since Born proposed the approximation in quantum mechanics, I will change the introduction accordigly. Currently I just added some links. MJCizek (talk) 11:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
There is currently this article (Born approximation), and a redirect page Born Approximation (note capital A), which redirects to Adibatic theorem. Beojan (talk) 21:22, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
Proposal for simplified introduction
[edit]I believe that the introduction is too technical and meandering for anyone without grad school experience to understand. In accordance with the notion of writing "one level down," it should be simplified to an undergraduate level (or possibly lower). I made some edits, but there was some disagreement on their accuracy, so I'm opening up the discussion here. As I understand/apply it (in x-ray diffraction), the Born approximation consists of assuming no secondary scattering events. I'm less familiar with its application in quantum mechanics, but it seemed like the same idea. Thoughts? Jacione (talk) 15:01, 18 September 2025 (UTC)
- The Born approximation does assume single scattering, but the single scattering itself is further approximated. The formula for the scattering amplitude involves an integral over the wavefunction and the potential. A full QM calculation for the wavefunction needs the presence of the single scattering potential. So we are stuck: we don't have the wavefunction to integrate over because the wavefunction itself depends upon the potential. The Born approximation says, well let's assume the potential is large in only one tiny spot (localized) and everywhere else the wavefunction is close to a plane wave, so let's use a plane wave in the integral. The localization requirement is why a Coulomb scattering § Screened Coulomb potential is needed.
- I actually think I lowered the level when I wrote the "Approximate scattering amplitude" section, before it was just the Lippmann Schwinger stuff ;-) I'm not against trying to improve the content and make the intro more accessible as long as we have it properly sourced in the article itself. Johnjbarton (talk) 19:31, 18 September 2025 (UTC)