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What is the formula for scattering and energy change of photons on (naked) nuclei?

(On wikipedia Compton scattering does only explain scattering of photons by electrons, and I'm not even aware if the scattering with atomic nuclei has a different name, I always assumed it would be Compton scattering, too.)

This is a followup from X-ray shielding .

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Gyro Gearloose
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  • Life will get complicated if the photons can excite nuclear states, mind you... – Jon Custer Feb 26 '16 at 21:52
  • Don't they do (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_resonance)? But I'm only asking for scattering. Photons don't alter electrons while being scattered, same should be possible for nuclei. (Well, except for momentum and possibly angular momentum.) – Gyro Gearloose Feb 26 '16 at 21:58
  • The Compton effect is primarily an exchange of momentum; it would work just as well with an ion core as with an electron,but if the photon energy is measured in MeV, your atom may be subject to photo-disintegration. The HyperPhysics website develops the formulas. – Peter Diehr Feb 26 '16 at 23:03
  • @PeterDiehr thank you, this adds one more point of skepticism against wikipedia. Could you provide a formula and make it into an answer? Some lower limit to ensure where photo-disintegration would not occur would be an extra profit, but probably following this into details would result in a different question. – Gyro Gearloose Feb 26 '16 at 23:12
  • Besides your giant resonance link, there are plenty of gamma levels - any nuclear level diagram has plenty... – Jon Custer Feb 26 '16 at 23:18
  • @JonCuster didn't know for sure but would have expected so. This does make your first comment even more mysterious. – Gyro Gearloose Feb 26 '16 at 23:31
  • Well, it just means that absorption comes in to play in the photon-nucleus interaction, up to and including dissociation. That complicated the 'simple' Compton scattering framework you are starting with. – Jon Custer Feb 27 '16 at 00:02

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