View source for Inelastic nuclear neutron scattering

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One of the early successes of neutron scattering was the study of dynamics of matter, in particular phonon dispersion relations. Here, the vibrational frequency (or phonon energy) is deduced from the change in neutron energy through the principle of energy conservation. Hence, for the study of dynamics we are dealing with inelastic neutron scattering.  

This page naturally leads to the description on the [[Scattering from lattice vibrations]]<!--chap.~\ref{ch:phonon}--> page of neutron scattering from quantised lattice vibrations, or ''phonons''. The related topic of inelastic neutron scattering from diffusion and molecular motion is not covered in this version of the notes. The most important part of the instrumentation for the general field of inelastic neutron scattering is described in [[Scattering from lattice vibrations]].

We start by repeating the important definition of the inelastic (or partial differential) scattering cross section: 

\begin{equation} 
\frac{d^2\sigma}{d\Omega dE_{\rm f}} = \frac{1}{\Psi} 
\frac{ \text{number of neutrons scattered per sec into } d \Omega \text{ with energies } [E_f;E_f + dE_f] }
     { d\Omega dE_{\rm f} } \, .
\end{equation}

This defintion holds for all types of inelastic scattering, whether it is of nuclear or magnetic origin.

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= *[[Scattering from nuclear dynamics]] =
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{{:Scattering from nuclear dynamics}}
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= *[[Scattering from magnetic dynamics]] =
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{{:Scattering from magnetic dynamics}}
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