Mandelstam representation

Mandelstam representation

[′mänd·əl‚shtäm ‚rep·ri‚zən′tā·shən] (particle physics) For a reaction in which there are two particles both before and after scattering: an expression, containing several integrals, for a function related to the scattering amplitude; the arguments of the function are the center-of-mass energy and scattering angle, extended to complex values; the function is conjectured to be analytic in these variables except for certain cuts and to have values along these cuts which give the scattering amplitude of the reaction, and of the two reactions derivable from it by the crossing principle.