Differential cross section and analyzing power measurements for →nd elastic scattering at 248 MeV

Abstract

The differential cross sections and vector analyzing powers for nd elastic scattering at En=248 MeV were measured for 10°–180° in the center-of-mass (c.m.) system. To cover the wide angular range, the experiments were performed separately by using two different setups for forward and backward angles. The data are compared with theoretical results based on Faddeev calculations with realistic nucleon-nucleon (NN) forces such as AV18, CD Bonn, and Nijmegen I and II, and their combinations with the three-nucleon forces (3NFs), such as Tucson-Melbourne 99 (TM99), Urbana IX, and the coupled-channel potential with Δ-isobar excitation. Large discrepancies are found between the experimental cross sections and theory with only 2N forces for θc.m.>90°. The inclusion of 3NFs brings the theoretical cross sections closer to the data but only partially explains this discrepancy. For the analyzing power, no significant improvement is found when 3NFs are included. Relativistic corrections are shown to be small for both the cross sections and the analyzing powers at this energy. For the cross sections, these effects are mostly seen in the very backward angles. Compared with the pd cross section data, quite significant differences are observed at all scattering angles that cannot be explained only by the Coulomb interaction, which is usually significant at small angles.