From: "hanson" <hanson@quick.net>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.plasma
Subject: Re: Photon frequency loss on collision
Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net


Photon frequency loss on collision

Does a photon loose energy when colliding with a H-atom, in a very dilute
gas, like in intergalactic space?
How much, what fraction, of its incident frequency does a photon lose when
encountering and colliding with an H atom?
It is said that there are all kinds of interactions possible from
ionization to transnational, well, translational, and rotational states.
But I don't want to have a rehash of Bohr, Heisenberg and Moessbauer
theories.

What I like to know is whether there is (perhaps) a common loss ratio of
energy between incidence and emission of delta f / f, no matter what the
initial hf of the photon is?

In case one insists hat hf-in = hf out, that NO frequency loss occurs
between absorption and emission, then the question arises: What does the
work, what makes this (unit=1) process happen?

hanson