Effect of energy conservation on in-medium $\mbox{NN}\to \mbox{N}\Delta$ cross section in isospin-asymmetric nuclear matter

TL;DR

This study calculates the in-medium $NN o N\Delta$ cross section considering isovector mesons and energy conservation corrections, revealing charge-dependent modifications in isospin asymmetric nuclear matter.

Contribution

It introduces a correction for energy conservation in calculating the in-medium $NN o N\Delta$ cross section, highlighting isospin-dependent medium effects.

Findings

Cross sections for $\Delta^{++}$ and $\Delta^+$ are suppressed.

Cross sections for $\Delta^0$ and $\Delta^-$ are enhanced.

Medium correction factor $R$ depends on charge state and energy, especially near threshold.

Abstract

In this paper, the in-medium $NN\rightarrow N\Delta$ cross section is calculated in the framework of the one-boson exchange model by including the isovector mesons, i.e. $\delta$ and $\rho$ mesons. Due to the isospin exchange in the $NN\rightarrow N\Delta$ process, the vector self-energies of the outgoing particles are modified relative to the incoming particles in isospin asymmetric nuclear matter, and it leads to the effective energies of the incoming $NN$ pair being different from the outgoing $N\Delta$ pair. This effect is investigated in the calculation of the in-medium $NN\rightarrow N\Delta$ cross section. With the corrected energy conservation, the cross sections of the $\Delta^{++}$ and $\Delta^+$ channels are suppressed, and the cross sections of the $\Delta^0$ and $\Delta^-$ channels are enhanced relative to the results obtained without properly considering the potential energy changes. Our results further confirm the dependence of medium correction factor, $R=\sigma_{ NN\rightarrow N\Delta}^*/\sigma_{NN\rightarrow N\Delta}^{\text{free}}$, on the charge state of $NN\rightarrow N\Delta$ especially around the threshold energy, but the isospin splitting of medium correction factor $R$ becomes weak at high beam energies.