Formalism for obtaining nuclear momentum distributions by the Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering technique

Abstract

We present a new formalism to obtain momentum distributions in condensed matter from Neutron Compton Profiles measured by the Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering technique. The formalism describes exactly the Neutron Compton Profiles as an integral in the momentum variable $y$. As a result we obtain a Volterra equation of the first kind that relates the experimentally measured magnitude with the momentum distributions of the nuclei in the sample. The integration kernel is related with the incident neutron spectrum, the total cross section of the filter analyzer and the detectors efficiency function. A comparison of the present formalism with the customarily employed approximation based on a convolution of the momentum distribution with a resolution function is presented. We describe the inaccuracies that the use of this approximation produces, and propose a new data treatment procedure based on the present formalism.