exterior complex scaling

exterior complex scaling

[ik¦stir·ē·ər ¦käm‚pleks ‚skāl·iŋ] (atomic physics) A mathematical transformation, which has been used to simplify the boundary conditions on the wave functions in an electron-atom collision, in which the variable r, representing the distance of the electron from the nucleus, is replaced, at values of r greater than some constant R, by R + (r-R) C, where C is a complex number with unit modulus and positive imaginary part.