Theory of hadron-deuteron elastic scattering in the GeV region

Abstract

A multiple scattering formalism for the medium energy hadron-deuteron elastic scattering is developed. This approach provides an extension of the Glauber theory incorporating the complete spin structure and the corrections to the eikonal and fixed scatterer approximations. The systematics of the spin observables and their relation to the hadron-deuteron as well as to hadron-nucleon amplitudes are discussed. An approximate cancellation between few corrections to the double scattering term is found which leaves the non-eikonal correction as the dominant one, and often, very important numerically, e.g., in the deuteron tensor polarization. Comparison of the parameter-free predictions of the theory based on the recent NN phase shift amplitudes with the data on polarization observables in pd elastic scattering is made.