The '''Gaunt factor''' (or '''Kramers–Gaunt factor''') is a correction factor that accounts for the effect of quantum mechanics on an object's continuous x-ray absorption or emission spectrum. In cases where classical physics provides a close approximation to the true spectrum, the Gaunt factor is close to 1. When quantum physics becomes important, it becomes bigger or smaller than 1.<ref name=dopita_sutherland2003/>
The Gaunt factor was named after the physicist John Arthur Gaunt, based on his work on the quantum mechanics of continuous absorption.<ref name=baas25_934/> Gaunt used a 'g' function in his 1930 work, which Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar named the 'Gaunt factor' in 1939.<ref name=chandrasekhar1958/> It is sometimes named the Kramers-Gaunt factor as Gaunt incorporated the work of Hendrik Anthony Kramers.
==See also== * Gamow_factor#History * Kramers' opacity law
==References== <references>
<ref name=dopita_sutherland2003>{{cite book |author1=Dopita, Michael A. |author2=Sutherland, Ralph S. | title=Astrophysics of the diffuse universe | series=Astronomy and astrophysics library | page=128 | publisher=Springer | date=2003 | isbn=3-540-43362-7 }}</ref>
<ref name=baas25_934>{{cite journal | last=Garstang | first=R. H. | title=Gaunt and his Factor | journal=Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society | volume=25 | page=934 |date=May 1993 | bibcode=1993AAS...182.8104G }}</ref>
<ref name=chandrasekhar1958>{{cite book | first=Subrahmanyan | last=Chandrasekhar | title=An introduction to the study of stellar structure | page=262 | series=Astrophysical monographs | publisher=Courier Dover Publications | date=1958 | isbn=0-486-60413-6 }}</ref>
</references>
==Further reading== * {{cite journal | last=Gaunt | first=J. A. | title=Continuous Absorption | journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Containing Papers of a Mathematical or Physical Character | volume= 229 | pages=163–204 | date=1930 | doi=10.1098/rsta.1930.0005 | bibcode=1930RSPTA.229..163G | issue=670–680 | doi-access=free }}
Category:Scattering, absorption and radiative transfer (optics)
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