Aharonov-Bohm and Coulomb Scattering Near the Forward Direction

Abstract

The exact wave functions that describe scattering of a charged particle by a confined magnetic field (Aharonov-Bohm effect) and by a Coulomb field are analyzed. It is well known that the usual procedure of finding asymptotic forms of these functions which admit a separation into a superposition of an incident plane wave and a circular or spherical scattered wave is problematic near the forward direction. It thus appears to be impossible to express the conservation of probability by means of an optical theorem of the usual kind. Both the total cross section and the forward scattering amplitude appear to be infinite. To address these difficulties we find a new representation for the asymptotic form of the Aharonov-Bohm wave function that is valid for all angles. Rather than try to define a cross section at forward angles, however, we work instead with the probability current and find that it is quite well behaved. The same is true for Coulomb scattering. We trace the usual difficulties to a nonuniformity of limits.