Elastic scattering, polarization and absorption of relativistic antiprotons on nuclei

TL;DR

This study uses Glauber model calculations to analyze relativistic antiproton interactions with nuclei, predicting elastic scattering, polarization, and absorption behaviors relevant for upcoming experiments at FAIR.

Contribution

The paper provides new predictions for antiproton-nucleus scattering at high energies, including polarization signals and absorption cross sections, extending previous models to the regime of the PANDA experiment.

Findings

Deep diffractive minima in antiproton-nucleus elastic scattering due to smaller real-to-imaginary ratio.

Significant polarization signals are expected at 10 GeV/c.

Absorption cross section strongly depends on the slope parameter of the elementary amplitude.

Abstract

We perform Glauber model calculations of the antiproton-nucleus elastic and quasielastic scattering and absorption in the beam momentum range $\sim 0.5\div10$ GeV/c. A good agreement of our calculations with available LEAR data and with earlier Glauber model studies of the $\bar p A$ elastic scattering allows us to make predictions at the beam momenta of $\sim 10$ GeV/c, i.e. at the regime of the PANDA experiment at FAIR. The comparison with the proton-nucleus elastic scattering cross sections shows that the diffractive minima are much deeper in the $\bar p A$ case due to smaller absolute value of the ratio of the real-to-imaginary part of the elementary elastic amplitude. Significant polarization signal for $\bar p A$ elastic scattering at 10 GeV/c is expected. We have also revealed a strong dependence of the $\bar p A$ absorption cross section on the slope parameter of the transverse momentum dependence of the elementary $\bar pN$ amplitude. The $\bar p A$ optical potential is discussed.