Relativistic deuterons: Their dynamics and structure in collisions with nucleons and nuclei

Abstract

A wide range of problems associated with investigating the structure and dynamics of relativistic deuterons in (d,p) processes on protons and atomic nuclei are considered. Experimental data include the proton momentum distributions and tensor analyzing power of these reactions on various nuclei and at various energies measured in beams of unpolarized and polarized deuterons at the JINR synchrophasotron. The experimental results are interpreted with an emphasis on using the light-front dynamics, which is well-suited for analyzing the data in terms of the wave function. The application of this approach for analyzing the A(d,p)X reaction is shown to be convenient for obtaining new important information on the deuteron structure at small distances and describing adequately its behavior at relativistic energies. The difficulties arising in this approach are also indicated. The suggestions for setting up new experiments in the designed polarized deuterons beam at Nuclotron are made.