This figure shows the importance of careful attenuation measurement in differentiating between different theories.

A number of experiments, including attenuation measurements and Diffraction Anomalous Fine Structure measurements, are able to investigate interesting regions of physics and require fairly precise theoretical input for comparison. Hence they can be critical tests of theory but also can investigate new areas of physics. A fundamental difficulty is that although the best experimental literature can claim 1% precision, variation exists for almost all elements and X-ray energies of around 5% - 15%.

Recent experiments by our group at Tsukuba, Japan, have raised the possibility of measurements approaching 0.1% - 0.2% precision. This will revolutionise the experimental database and raise critical and incisive questions about the deviations of different theories. Clearly, then, this is related to the theoretical investigations.

Theory and computation of Atomic Form Factors

(See the introduction for the xray optics home page.)