In Compton scattering, the energy of the incident photon is equal to which of the following?

In Compton scattering, the interaction involves an incident photon interacting with a loosely bound or free electron. When this interaction occurs, the incident photon transfers some of its energy to the electron, resulting in the electron being ejected from its atom as a recoil electron, while the photon is scattered at a different angle with a reduced energy.

The correct understanding of this process is that the energy of the incident photon is not solely transferred to the scattered photon or the recoil electron separately; rather, it is conserved and split between the energies of both the scattered photon and the recoil electron. Thus, the total energy before the interaction, represented by the energy of the incident photon, must equal the total energy after the interaction, which is the sum of the energies of the scattered photon and the recoil electron.

Thus, the energy of the incident photon is indeed equal to the sum of the energies of the scattered photon and the recoil electron, reinforcing the conservation of energy principle that is fundamental in this type of scattering.