Scattering in the Presence of a Reflecting and Transmitting Impurity

TL;DR

This paper studies how particles scatter when encountering an impurity that both reflects and transmits, revealing a new algebraic structure that ensures unitarity of the scattering process.

Contribution

It introduces an extended boundary algebra framework to describe factorized scattering with a reflecting and transmitting impurity, accounting for non-trivial bulk scattering.

Findings

Bulk scattering depends on individual spectral parameters, not just their difference

A specific algebraic extension encodes the scattering theory

The total scattering operator is shown to be unitary

Abstract

We investigate factorized scattering from a reflecting and transmitting impurity. Bulk scattering is non trivial, provided that the bulk scattering matrix depends separately on the spectral parameters of the colliding particles, and not only on their difference. We show that a specific extension of a boundary algebra encodes the underlying scattering theory. The total scattering operator is constructed in this framework and shown to be unitary.