The process of transition radiation is a very general one. It appears if some source, which does not have a proper frequency (for example a point charge, multipole etc.), is moving with a constant velocity in an inhomogeneous and/or nonstationary medium. In the case of a periodic medium the transition radiation has some special peculiarities and is called the resonance transition radiation or transition scattering. Transition scattering occurs particularly in the case when some wave of dielectric permitivity acts on a nonmoving (fixed) charge. The processes of transition radiation and transition scattering have analogies outside electrodynamics similarly to the Vavilov-Cherenkov emission. The latter occurs also for a source moving with a constant velocity but in a homogeneous medium (and only if the velocity of the source exceeds the wave phase velocity in the medium). The present review is dealing with several problems of the theory of transition radiation and transition scattering. Attention is paid mainly to the formulation of the problems and to revealing characteristic features and peculiarities of the phenomena described. © 1979.
