Polarization in Nuclear Reactions—Formalism

Abstract

Polarization phenomena are expected and are important whenever we deal with particles with spin and especially whenever spin-dependent forces contribute to the interaction. Such forces such as a nuclear spin-orbit (L S) force, a spin-spin force, and a tensor force are present already in the interaction between two nucleons and must be considered in nucleus-nucleus interactions. Polarization observables need more complicated descriptions than the cross section. Definitions and the formalism of cartesian and spherical tensor moments are therefore explicitly given.