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short communications
It is shown that the neutron powder diffraction peak as computed by van Laar & Yelon [J. Appl. Cryst. (1984). 17, 47–54] can be rather well approximated using a normalized asymmetric peak profile as proposed by Howard [J. Appl. Cryst. (1982). 15, 615–620] or Prince [J. Appl. Cryst. (1983). 16, 508–511] together with an intensity correction factor from Cooper & Glasspool [J. Appl. Cryst. (1976). 9, 63–67]. Since the differences are material only at the lowest scattering angles (2θ ≲ 10°), in most cases a description of the peak by one of the simpler analytic profile functions should be adequate.