Atomic, molecular, and optical physics the origin of the index of refraction treated an electron in an atomic system classically according to the model of Paul Drude and Hendrik Lorentz. The theory was developed to attempt to provide an origin for the wavelength-dependent refractive index "n" of a material. In this model, incident electromagnetic waves forced an electron bound to an atom to oscillate. The amplitude of the oscillation would then have a relationship to the frequency of the incident electromagnetic wave and the resonant frequencies of the oscillator. The superposition of these emitted waves from many oscillators would then lead to a wave which
Scattering amplitude quantum mechanical approach is given by the S matrix formalism. The scattering amplitude can be determined by the scattering length in the low-energy regime. Scattering amplitude In quantum physics, the scattering amplitude is the probability amplitude of the outgoing spherical wave relative to the incoming plane wave in a stationary-state scattering process. The latter is described by the wavefunction where formula_2 is the position vector; formula_3; formula_4 is the incoming plane wave with the wavenumber along the axis; formula_5 is the outgoing spherical wave; is the scattering angle; and formula_6 is the scattering amplitude. The dimension of the scattering amplitude