Hard Photodisintegration of 3He into pd pair

TL;DR

This paper extends the hard rescattering mechanism to explain high energy photodisintegration of helium-3 into a proton-deuteron pair, deriving a parameter-free cross section formula that aligns well with experimental data.

Contribution

The work introduces a theoretical formalism for the $ ext{γ}^3 ext{He} ightarrow pd$ reaction within the HRM framework, providing a new, parameter-free cross section expression.

Findings

Derived a parameter-free differential cross section formula.

Achieved numerical estimates consistent with experimental data.

Linked the reaction mechanism to quark-level interactions.

Abstract

The recent measurements of high energy photodisintegration of the $^3He$ nucleus to the $pd$ pair at $90^0$ center of mass demonstrated an energy scaling consistent with the quark counting rule with unprecedentedly large exponent of $s^{-17}$. To understand the underlying mechanism of this process we extended the theoretical formalism of hard rescattering mechanism to calculate the $\gamma ^3He\rightarrow pd$ reaction. In HRM the incoming high energy photon strikes a quark from one of the nucleons in the target which subsequently undergoes hard rescattering with the quarks from the other nucleons generating hard two-body system in the final state of the reaction. Within the HRM we derived the parameter free expression for the differential cross section of the reaction, which is expressed through the $^3He\rightarrow pd$ transition spectral function, cross section of hard $pd\rightarrow pd$ scattering and the effective charge of the quarks being interchanged during the hard rescattering process. The numerical estimates of all these factors resulted in the magnitude of the cross section which is surprisingly in a good agreement with the data.