Physics Forums

I read that photons can interact with electrons, atoms or simply disintegrate. The four cases I came across are.

1. Compton scattering.
2. Photoelectric effect
3. Knock an electron to a higher energy state in an atom.
4. electron-positron pair production.

While I understand each process what determines when one would occur as opposed to another. For example, under what conditions does Compton scattering occur vs. the photoelectric effect?
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