Summation of partial waves for large-angle scattering

For large-angle elastic scattering different methods of summing partial wave amplitudes are investigated for their accuracy and simplicity of computation. It is found that among the approximations considered, the method of expanding the T-matrix in terms of the weighted orthogonal polynomials proposed by Brysk is the most accurate way of calculating the scattering amplitude in the backward direction. If the two-particle interaction is assumed to be a Yukawa potential, then the lth partial sum of the T-matrix with the weighted polynomials can be expressed as the lth partial sum with the Legendre polynomials and a correction term which depends on the phase shift for the lth partial wave.