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The usual textbook one-particle Green's function possesses a self-energy that is known to be an optical potential for elastic scattering. The introduction of an optical potential reduces the complex many-body scattering problem into a tractable one-body problem. In this work the definition of Green's functions is extended. The defined inelastic functions are shown to possess self-energies that can be expressed in closed form in terms of the target states. It is proven that these self-energies are optical potentials for inelastic scattering. The properties of these potentials and working equations for the scattering wave functions are discussed. Particular emphasis is put on elucidating the substantial differences arising in the scattering of a projectile distinguishable from the target's particles and in the scattering of indistinguishable particles.