Abstract

We study scattering of three equal mass particles in one dimension. Integrable interactions are synonymous with non-diffractive scattering, meaning that the set of incoming momenta for any scattering event coincides with the set of outgoing momenta. A system is integrable if the two particle scattering matrix obeys the Yang–Baxter equation. Nonintegrable interactions correspond to diffractive scattering, where the set of outgoing momenta may take on all values consistent with energy and momentum conservation. Such processes play a vital role in the kinetics of one dimensional gases, where binary collisions are unable to alter the distribution function. When integrability is broken weakly, the result is a small diffractive scattering amplitude. Our main result is a simple formula for the diffractive part of the scattering amplitude, when the violation of the Yang–Baxter equation is small. Although the derivation is given for delta-function interactions, the result depends only on the two-particle scattering matrix, and should therefore also apply to finite-range interactions close to integrable.