Effects of negative energy components in two-body deuteron photodisintegratio

Abstract

Several observables in two-body deuteron photodisintegration are investigated in the framework of the Bethe-Salpeter formalism. Apart from keeping throughout Lorentz covariance, a special attention is paid to inclusion of both the positive energy and negative energy partial-wave components of the deuteron state. Using the Bethe-Salpeter equation for deuteron in the ladder approximation with one-boson exchanges as a driving force, the contribution of the negative energy states is studied for the unpolarized differential cross as well as the linear photon and tensor target asymmetries. These states are found to have an impact on the observables and, thus, should be taken into account in a complete theoretical development of the reaction in the intermediate energy regime.