Theory of deuteron splitting by slow protons

Abstract

Interaction between slow protons (with wavelengths much larger than the range of nuclear forces) and deuterons is considered. In contrast to the theory developed in refs. 1,2) for neutron-deuteron scattering (and the splitting of deuterons by neutrons) the problem involves the consideration of the Coulomb interaction of protons. It is shown that the elastic proton-deuteron scattering can be described by the Landau-Smorodinsky formulae for p−p scattering or (in another energy range) by a simple sum of nuclear and Coulomb amplitudes. The amplitude of the p+d→p+p+n process can be obtained rather simply from the amplitude of the n+d→ n+n+p process if the Coulomb corrections αe 2/ h ̵ ν t ≈ 0.1 (where ν t is the triplet velocity of the nucleons in a deuteron) are neglected and the total energy of the three particles produced is assumed to be much larger than the absolute magnitude of the virtual singlet nucleon binding energy.