4He experiments can serve as a database for determining the three-nucleon force

Abstract

We report on microscopic calculations for the 4He compound system in the framework of the resonating group model employing realistic nucleon-nucleon and three nucleon forces. The resulting scattering phase shifts are compared to those of a comprehensive R-matrix analysis of all data in this system, which are available in numerical form. The agreement between calculation and analysis is in most cases very good. Adding three-nucleon forces yields in many cases large effects. For a few cases the new agreement is striking. We relate some differencies between calculation and analysis to specific data and discuss neccessary experiments to clarify the situation. From the results we conclude that the data of the 4He system might be well suited to determine the structure of the three-nucleon force.