EMERGENCE OF A PSEUDO-QUASIELASTIC COMPONENT IN THE NEUTRON SCATTERING CROSS SECTION

ANA P. MAJTEY; SILVIA A. MENCHÓN; CARLOS A. CONDAT

Colonia (Uruguay)

Congreso; XIII Meeting on Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics and Nonlinear Physics; 2002

Neutron scattering cross sections exhibit no quasi-elastic components if the scatterer moves in a one-dimensional Hamiltonian potential. However, if the potential contains flattened regions, part of the inelastic spectrum appears as a pseudo-quasielastic (PQE) component which could, in principle, be mistaken for a genuine quasielastic line. Using as a paradigm a power-law potential, we investigate the main features of this PQE component and discuss some properties (such as its temperature and wave number dependence) that would help us to distinguish it from the quasielastic signal. Analytical results are given for the various frequency domains.