  We treat the non-relativistic Compton scattering process in which an incoming
photon scatters from an N-electron many-body state to yield an outgoing photon
and a recoil electron, without invoking the commonly used frameworks of either
the impulse approximation (IA) or the independent particle model (IPM). An
expression for the associated triple differential scattering cross section is
obtained in terms of Dyson orbitals, which give the overlap amplitudes between
the N-electron initial state and the (N-1) electron singly ionized quantum
states of the target. We show how in the high energy transfer regime, one can
recover from our general formalism the standard IA based formula for the cross
section which involves the ground state electron momentum density (EMD) of the
initial state. Our formalism will permit the analysis and interpretation of
electronic transitions in correlated electron systems via inelastic x-ray
scattering (IXS) spectroscopy beyond the constraints of the IA and the IPM.
