Theoretical description of proton-deuteron interactions using exact two-body dynamic of femtoscopic correlation method

TL;DR

This paper compares two theoretical approaches for modeling proton-deuteron interactions using femtoscopic correlation data, highlighting the importance of higher-order partial waves for accurate descriptions.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of the Lednicky-Lyuboshits formalism and numerical solutions of the Schrödinger equation for proton-deuteron correlations, emphasizing the role of p-wave contributions.

Findings

Significant differences between the two modeling approaches.

Higher-order partial waves, especially p-wave, are crucial for accurate interaction modeling.

Inclusion of p-wave improves the understanding of the strong force in proton-deuteron interactions.

Abstract

Modeling proton-deuteron interactions is particularly challenging. Due the deuteron's large size, the interaction can extend over several femtometers. The degree to which it can be modeled as a two-body problem might also be questioned. One way to study these interactions is through femtoscopic correlation measurements of particle pairs, extracting information using available theoretical models. In this work, we examine two approaches for describing proton-deuteron correlations: the Lednicky-Lyuboshits formalism and full numerical solutions of the Schrodinger equation. Our results show that the differences between these methods are significant. Furthermore, we demonstrate that incorporating higher-order partial waves-particularly p-wave -is the essential for accurately capturing the dynamics of proton-deuteron interactions and the full potential of the strong force.