Elastic proton-deuteron scattering at intermediate energies

Abstract

Observables in elastic proton-deuteron scattering are sensitive probes of the nucleon-nucleon interaction and three-nucleon force effects. The present experimental data base for this reaction is large, but contains a large discrepancy between data sets for the differential cross section taken at 135 MeV/nucleon by two experimental research groups. This paper reviews the background of this problem and presents new data taken at KVI. Differential cross sections and analyzing powers for the 2 H( p,d)p and H( d,d)p reactions at 135 MeV/nucleon and 65 MeV/nucleon, respectively, have been measured. The data differ significantly from previous measurements and consistently follow the energy dependence as expected from an interpolation of published data taken over a large range at intermediate energies.