The complex coordinate scattering theory: Broken inversion symmetry of corrugated surfaces in helium diffraction from Cu(115)

The complex coordinate scattering theory is reformulated and applied to He/Cu(115) scattering. The weakly asymmetric corrugated surface leads to strong dependence of the diffraction intensities on the direction of the incident He beam. The calculated transition probabilities are in excellent agreement with the experimental values measured by Perreau and Lapujoulade. We show that additional information about the atom/surface interaction potential can be obtained if another experiment would be carried out when the Cu crystal will be rotated by 180°.