Explicit time-reversal violating interactions for nuclear physics

Abstract

Starting from a T-violating Lagrangian involving the nucleon, meson and electro magnetic fields interacting at a point, we calculate the one meson exchange diagram and obtain the longest range part of a two-nucleon electromagnetic operator. The cases when the meson is scalar, pseudoscalar and vector are considered. For the radiation of a real photon the multipole expansions of the transition operators are obtained. The properties and expected magnitudes of the resulting explicit two-nucleon transition operators are examined and compared to the normal operators. With the interactions at ‘maximal’ strength any contributions from the vector operators are negligible and violations from the other operators are only likely to reach the order of 10 −3 where the normal transitions are strongly inhibited. When the photon is virtual the interactions lead to explicit T-violating three-nucleon potentials. These potentials give practically no contributions to optical model potentials. The best reciprocity experiments appear to be nucleon transfer reactions, and there could be violations of the order of 10 −3 in ( d − p) reactions from the pseudoscalar potential. This potential is shown to give a stripping amplitude with angular properties very different from the normal one.