COMPOUND-POISSON-PROCESS METHOD FOR THE MULTIPLE-SCATTERING OF CHARGED-PARTICLES

The theory of multiple scattering for electrons and other changed part icles is presented here within a mathematically unifying compound-Pois son-process framework. The compound Poisson model of scattering phenom ena allows an arbitrary differential cross section for single scatteri ng, is not restricted to any particular range for the number of collis ions experienced by the particle, and is applicable to both the planar coordinate description of scattering (small angle approximation) as w ell as the spherical coordinate description (exact angle description). An efficient method for computing the angular probability density fun ction after a large number of collisions is derived and then applied i n a few example computations. This method is based on the decompositio n of the compound Poisson process into hard and soft scattering.