Retrieving Nuclear Information from Protons Propagating through A Thick Target

TL;DR

This paper develops a formalism to analyze how nuclear interaction information can be extracted from high-energy protons passing through a thick target, considering multiple Coulomb and nuclear scatterings without small-angle approximations.

Contribution

It introduces a new impact parameter formalism for multiple scattering in thick targets and derives conditions for retrieving nuclear information from angular distributions.

Findings

Closed-form expressions for beam broadening due to Coulomb scattering.

Conditions identified under which nuclear interaction information can be extracted.

Analysis includes both nuclear and Coulomb interactions without small-angle assumptions.

Abstract

The multiple scattering of high-energy particles in a thick target is fromulated in an impact parameter representation. A formalism similar but not identical to that of Moliere is obtained. We show that calculations of particle beam broadening due to multiple Coulomb scattering alone can be given in closed form. The focus of this study is on whether or not the broadening of the Coulomb angular distribution prevents the retrieval of nuclear-interaction information from mesauring the angular distributions of charged partiles scattered from a thick target. For this purpose, we study multiple scatterings with both the nuclear and Coulomb interactions included and we do not make a small-angle expansion. Condition for retrieving nuclear infomration from high-energy protons propagating through a block of material are obtained.