The Compton and Duane Effects

Friedel Weinert

Paul Sophus Epstein, P. Ehrenfest

In an important paper published on the pages of these PROCEEDINGS, W. Duane(1) makes a successful "attempt to formulate a theory of the reflection of X-rays by crystals, based on quantum ideas without reference to interference laws." A. H. Compton,(2) enlarging upon a hint contained in Duane's paper, has recently pointed out that the latter's hypothesis can be justified by the application of the general rules of the theory of quanta to the translatory motions of a crystal lattice.

Ching-Chuan Su

The Compton effect is commonly cited as a demonstration of the particle feature of light, while the wave nature of matter has been proposed by de Broglie and demonstrated by Davisson and Germer with the Bragg diffraction of electron beams. In this investigation, we present an entirely different interpretation of the Compton effect based on the postulates of de Broglie and on an interaction between electromagnetic and matter waves. The speeds of interacting electrons in the Compton scattering are quite fast and its mechanism relies heavily on the mass variation. Thus, based on this wave interpretation, the Compton effect can be viewed as a further demonstration of the postulates of de Broglie for high-speed particles. In addition to the scattered wave, a direct radiation depending on the mass variation is predicted, which provides a means to test the wave interpretation.

Ching-Chuan Su

Abstract – The Compton effect is commonly cited as a demonstration of the particle feature of light. In this investigation, we present an alternative interpretation of the Compton effect based on the postulates of de Broglie and on the wave scattering from a space- and timevarying medium, without explicit resort to the conservation of energy and momentum. PACS numbers: 13.60.Fz, 03.65.Ta, 03.75.-b 1.