Ramsauer approach to Mie scattering of light on spherical particles

The scattering of an electromagnetic plane wave by a spherical particle was solved analytically by Gustav Mie in 1908. The Mie solution is expressed as a series with very many terms thus obscuring the physical interpretations of the results. The purpose of the paper is to try to illustrate this phenomenon within the Ramsauer framework used in atomic and nuclear physics. We show that although the approximations are numerous, the Ramsauer analytical formulae describe fairly well the differential and the total cross sections. This allows us to propose an explanation for the origin of the different structures in the total cross section.