ATOMIC SCATTERING shows the motion of two atomic particles interacting through central force potentials such as Pauli repulsion and Coulombic attraction, simulates molecular beam scattering experiments, and demonstrates the physical phenomena of rainbow, glory, and Rutherford scattering.
PREFACE
ATOMIC SCAITERING is a computer simulation that enables you to examine the motion of two atomic particles interacting through a central-force potential. Physicists usually study these interacting motions with scattering experiments. ATOMIC SCATTERING mimics these scattering experiments on a computer screen.
Interactions of atomic particles are the underlying reason for many important physical phenomena, such as the deviations from ideal behavior of gases, the formation of liquids and solids, heat transfer, and the viscosity of fluids. ATOMIC SCATTERING demonstrates several important aspects of such interactions:
ATOMIC SCATTERING is appropriate for courses that discuss the physical interactions of atoms and molecules, such as courses in molecular physics, chemical physics, physical chemistry, or classical mechanics. Unlike textbooks and lectures, ATOMIC SCATTERING allows you to see motion and to examine the effects of changes in the parameters and initial conditions on the behavior of the system. It also allows you to study more computationally difficult problems than you can study analytically. For example, it demonstrates some of the concepts underlying molecular beam-scattering experiments and rainbow and glory scattering. ATOMIC SCATTERING simulates classical motions of ions and atoms by numerically solving the classical equations of motion. Classical mechanics is unable to fully describe the interactions and motions of ions or atoms, since these are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Describing these motions in terms of classical mechanics works only if the potential energy of interaction is known.
ATOMIC SCATTERING allows you to choose the initial conditions, vary the physical parameters, freeze the simulation, step through slowly, or view in different coordinate frames. After you set the initial conditions and the form of the potential, the program shows the trajectory of the atoms. You can display the trajectory in several ways: in real-space coordinates, in relative coordinates, in center-of-mass coordinates, or as motion of the radial coordinate in an effective potential. You can observe both bound and unbound states.
This documentation includes a discussion of the physics underlying the program, a description of the computational methods used to model the physics, a tutorial on how to get started with the program, operating instructions, and exercises for students. Information needed to run the program is also included in help files, which can be called from the program.