The influence of many-particle effects on the shape and values of the double differential cross section for the resonant inelastic scattering of a linearly polarized X-ray photon by a free atom near the K and KL23 ionization thresholds has been theoretically analyzed for the neon atom. The calculations have been performed using the nonrelativistic Hartree-Fock approximation for single-electron wavefunctions and the dipole approximation for the anomalous dispersion component of the cross section. The analytical structure of the contact part of the scattering cross section has been obtained beyond the dipole approximation. The effects of the radial relaxation of electron shells, spin-orbit and multiplet splitting, and configuration interaction in the doubly excited atomic states, as well as the Auger and radiative decays of the produced vacancies, are taken into account. The nature and role of the effect of correlation amplitudes, which is responsible for the appearance of the nonzero amplitudes of nonradiative transitions between intermediate and final single-electron states of the same symmetry that are obtained in different Hartree-Fock fields, have been analyzed also. The calculations are predictive and, for an incident-photon energy of 5.41 keV, agree well with experimental results for the K alpha X-ray emission spectrum of the neon atom. (c) 2005 Pleiades Publishing, Inc.