Atom-surface scattering in the classical limit: Temperature and energy dependence

The backscattered intensity from a beam of atomic projectiles directed towards the surface of a many-body target can be expressed in terms of simple closed-form expressions in the single-collision classical regime. Two well-known limits, which exhibit significantly different dependence on the target temperature and incident energy, arise for the cases in which the target is considered either as a collection of discrete scattering points or as a flat repulsive surface. By examining a target potential that varies from the case of a weakly corrugated smooth repulsive surface to strongly corrugated cores a classical expression is derived that exhibits a continuous distribution of temperature dependencies that connect and bridge the extreme behavior of the two well-known classical limits.