Treatment of the two-body Coulomb problem as a short-range potential

Abstract

The scattering wave function and the transition amplitude for the two-body Coulomb problem are written as power series of the Sommerfeld parameter. Making use of a mathematical study of the nth derivatives of Kummer function with respect to its first parameter, the series coefficients are expressed analytically in terms of multivariable hypergeometric functions. We establish the connection with the Born series based on the free particle Green's function and show its applicability to long-range potentials. We also relate our analysis to recent works on the distorted-wave theory for the Coulomb problem. For the transition amplitude, the Born series is presented and compared to the series obtained from the exact well-known Rutherford result. Since the two series differ, care must be taken when extracting the relevant information about the scattering. Finally, implications for three-body problems are discussed.