The Formal Theory of Scattering

Abstract

The theory of scattering is developed from first principles with strict attention to the question of the preparation of the state vector of the system appropriate to a description of scattering. The connection between the present formulation and the more conventional interaction representation and $S$ matrix presentations is traced. The wave matrix of M\o{}ller is introduced and the existence of bound states is discussed in connection with it. A number of applications to rather involved processes are discussed. Finally, the problem of self-energies in field-theoretic scattering calculations is treated.