Interference pattern of the Coulomb and the strong Van der Waals forces in p-p scattering

TL;DR

This paper predicts an interference pattern in low-energy proton-proton scattering caused by Coulomb and strong Van der Waals forces, suggesting precise measurements could confirm the existence of the latter.

Contribution

It introduces a method to detect the strong Van der Waals force through analyzing the angular distribution of proton-proton scattering at low energies.

Findings

Predicted a dip at 14° in the scattering pattern.

Estimated the dip depth to be around 1%.

Proposed experimental measurement to confirm the force.

Abstract

In order to confirm the strong Van der Waals force in the nucleon-nucleon interaction, it is proposed to measure precisely the angular distribution of the cross section of the low energy ($T_{lab}=20 \sim 30MeV.$) proton-proton scattering. By using the spectrum of the long range interaction obtained from the analysis of the phase shift data of the S-wave of the p-p scattering, a characteristic interference pattern, which arises from the repulsive Coulomb and the attractive strong Van der Waals forces, is predicted. The pattern has a dip at $theta_{c.m.}=14^{\circ}$ with the depth around one per cent.