Scattering of particles from a solid surface: The impulsive model of composite encounters

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive impulsive model for particle scattering from solid surfaces, generalizing existing models by considering series of elastic hits with pseudoparticles, and analyzes conditions for finite or infinite series of impacts.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel impulsive scattering model that generalizes the hard cube model by incorporating sequences of elastic hits with pseudoparticles and analyzes hit series conditions.

Findings

Most impact series have a positive probability of occurring.

The model does not satisfy the reciprocity condition.

Criteria for finite and infinite hit series are established.

Abstract

We propose a general impulsive model for scattering of molecules from a flat solid surface. It is assumed within the framework of this model that an encounter of an atom (or ion) with the surface is a series of elastic (in the direction normal to the surface) hits of the atom against surface pseudoparticles, the hits instantly following each other. To each atom, one assigns two infinite sequences of masses of pseudoparticles. The model is a far-reaching generalization of the well-known hard cube model. Criteria for both finiteness and infinity of series of hits are formulated, based on the masses of pseudoparticles and the mass of the atom. It is shown that in virtually all the cases, any number of hits in a series occurs with a positive probability. The proposed model does not satisfy the reciprocity condition.