Elastic Scattering of 600 MeV Protons from Light Nuclei

Abstract

In 1966 a program was initiated at the NASA-Lewis Research Center to study the scattering of 600 MeV protons from light nuclei. Deuterium, Helium (3) and Helium (4) were chosen partly for experimental reasons, and partly because a systematic study of these nuclei might be most suitable for testing multiple scattering theories. Such theories require a good knowledge of the elementary interaction between the incident particle and the target nucleons, and the nuclear wavefunction (or equivalently Fermi momentum distribution). Therefore, we have supplemented existing nucleon-nucleon scattering data by measuring the p-p differential cross section and polarization, and we have determined the momentum distribution for the proton in the deuteron and in Helium (4) from (p,2p) measure-ments. In this contribution I will report our results of differential cross section and polarization in elastic p-p, p-d, p-³He, p-⁴He scatterings. The (p,2p) results will be presented by Perdrisat in a separate contribution to this conference. The experiments were performed at the proton synchrocyclotron of the NASA-Space Radiation Effects Laboratory in Virginia. Our team, in addition to W. K. Roberts, J. S. Vincent and myself consisted of M. Blecher, K. Gotow, P. C. Gugelot, C. F. Perdrisat, and L. W. Swenson of the Virginia Universities and J. R. Priest from Miami University.