Towards an understanding of discrete ambiguities in truncated partial wave analyses

TL;DR

This paper investigates the nature of discrete ambiguities in truncated partial wave analyses, revealing they are a subset of continuum ambiguities and presenting a numerical method to connect phases.

Contribution

It demonstrates that discrete ambiguities are a special case of continuum ambiguities and introduces a numerical approach to relate their phases.

Findings

Discrete ambiguities are a subset of continuum ambiguities.

A numerical method to establish phase connections is proposed.

Discrete ambiguities can be understood through continuum ambiguity analysis.

Abstract

It is well known that the observables in a single-channel scattering problem remain invariant once the amplitude is multiplied by an overall energy- and angle-dependent phase. This invariance is called the continuum ambiguity and acts on the infinite partial wave set. It has also long been known that, in the case of a truncated partial wave set, another invariance exists, originating from the replacement of the roots of partial wave amplitudes with their complex conjugate values. This discrete ambiguity is also known as the Omelaenko-Gersten-type ambiguity. In this paper, we show that for scalar particles, discrete ambiguities are just a subset of continuum ambiguities with a specific phase and thus mix partial waves, as the continuum ambiguity does. We present the main features of both, continuum and discrete ambiguities, and describe a numerical method which establishes the relevant phase connection.