Relativistic description of 3He(e,e'p)2H

TL;DR

This paper employs a relativistic theoretical framework combining the Dirac equation and hyperspherical methods to accurately describe the $^3$He($e,e^ extprime p$)$^2$H reaction and compare with experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive relativistic approach using the Dirac equation and hyperspherical expansion to model the $^3$He(e,e'p)2H process with realistic interactions.

Findings

Good agreement with experimental cross sections

Accurate modeling of the overlap between $^3$He and deuteron wave functions

Effective description of the outgoing proton wave function

Abstract

The Relativistic Distorted-Wave Impulse Approximation is used to describe the $^3$He($e,e^\prime p$)$^2$H process. We describe the $^3$He nucleus within the adiabatic hyperspherical expansion method with realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions. The overlap between the $^3$He and the deuteron wave functions can be accurately computed from a three-body calculation. The nucleons are described by solutions of the Dirac equation with scalar and vector (S-V) potentials. The wave function of the outgoing proton is obtained by solving the Dirac equation with a S-V optical potential fitted to elastic proton scattering data on the residual nucleus. Within this theoretical framework, we compute the cross section of the reaction and other observables like the transverse-longitudinal asymmetry, and compare them with the available experimental data measured at JLab.