Elastic proton-deuteron scattering at intermediate energies

TL;DR

This paper presents new experimental data on elastic proton-deuteron scattering at intermediate energies, resolving discrepancies in previous measurements and providing insights into nucleon interactions and three-nucleon forces.

Contribution

It offers new differential cross section and analyzing power data at 135 MeV/nucleon and 65 MeV/nucleon, clarifying previous inconsistencies and supporting energy dependence models.

Findings

New data differ from previous measurements

Data follow expected energy dependence

Resolves existing data discrepancies

Abstract

Observables in elastic proton-deuteron scattering are sensitive probes of the nucleon-nucleon interaction and three-nucleon force effects. The present experimental data base for this reaction is large, but contains a large discrepancy between data sets for the differential cross section taken at 135 MeV/nucleon by two experimental research groups. This paper reviews the background of this problem and presents new data taken at KVI. Differential cross sections and analyzing powers for the $^{2}{\rm H}(\vec p,d){p}$ and ${\rm H}(\vec d,d){p}$ reactions at 135 MeV/nucleon and 65 MeV/nucleon, respectively, have been measured. The data differ significantly from previous measurements and consistently follow the energy dependence as expected from an interpolation of published data taken over a large range at intermediate energies.