Eikonal expansion in electron scattering: I. Elastic scattering

A systematic eikonal expansion for the scattering of high-energy electrons from nuclei is derived which starts from the iterated Dirac equation. The resulting scattering amplitude is written in an impact parameter representation depending on eikonal phases which are proportional to inverse powers of the energy. The first two correction terms to the leading Glauber-Baker amplitude are calculated. For a Coulomb potential they agree with a sinθ-expansion of the relativistic Coulomb scattering amplitude. In the case of scattering from an extended charge distribution at sufficiently high energies numerical partial wave calculations are accurately reproduced.