EM waves interacting with matter

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> My naive picture of EM waves interacting with matter (in general)
> leads me to think that waves are either:
>
> (1) reflected,
>
> (2) absorbed or
>
> (3) transmitted.
>
> What other possibilities ARE there???
>
> (This is intended as a Big Picture Question as opposed to a Picky
> Detail Quibbling)

Those are the conventional branches, of course. There is an
additional consideration, however. "Absorbed" usually subsumes
"scattered", and scattering can represent a number of other
phenomena including elastic scattering, Raman (slightly
inelastic) scattering of both Stokes and anti-Stokes flavors,
and frequency multiplication, to name a few off the top of my
head. If the matter is suitably prepared one can also have
superradiance (stimulated emission). If the frequency of the
waves is high enough we might expect many more effects;
Compton scattering and pair production come to mind.

I hope that answers the simple question. I'll leave the Big
Picture aspect to others.

Leigh