Relativistic effects in neutron-deuteron elastic scattering

Abstract

We solved the three-nucleon Faddeev equation including relativistic features such as relativistic kinematics, boost effects and Wigner spin rotations. As dynamical input a relativistic nucleon-nucleon interaction exactly on-shell equivalent to the AV18 potential has been used. The effects of Wigner rotations for elastic scattering observables were found to be small. The boost effects are significant at higher energies.They diminish the transition matrix elements at higher energies and lead in spite of the increased relativistic phase-space factor as compared to the nonrelativistic one to rather small effects in the cross section, which are mostly restricted to the backward angles.