Interactions of Antiprotons in Hydrogen, Beryllium, and Carbon

Abstract

To determine the nature of the interactions between antinucleons and nucleons, it has been necessary to do an experiment in which the elastic, inelastic, and charge-exchange interactions could be measured. Improvements in the 6-Bev Bevatron have permitted production of a considerably larger flux of antiprotons, than was available in earlier studies. With the use of strong-focusing magnetic quadrupoles, a crossed electric- and magnetic-field spectrometer, and time-of-flight scintillation counters it has been possible to detect approximately 30 antiprotons per minute. By means of a system of 4{pi} solid-angle scintillation counters, it has been possible to measure these cross sections, including the angular distribution of elastic scattering. These cross sections have been measured for antiprotons scattered from hydrogen, beryllium, and carbon in the energy range from 133 to 333 Mev. Ball and Chew have assumed that pion exchange is responsible for the nucleon-nucleon interaction, and have used field theory to calculate the antinucleon-nucleon interaction. They have assumed that the pionic charge of the antinucleon is opposite that of the nucleon; thus, the exchange of an odd number of pions should change the sign of the potential. Outside the hard core, the exchange is assumed to be due to two pions, and themore » sign of the potential is not reversed for either the nucleon or the antinucleon case.« less