Three-nucleon force effects in inclusive spectra of the neutron-deuteron breakup reaction

Abstract

We investigate the sensitivity of the non-exclusive nucleon induced deuteron breakup reaction to the three-nucleon interaction and distributions of three-nucleon force effects in inclusive spectra. To this end we solve the three-nucleon Faddeev equation at a number of incoming nucleon laboratory energies using the CD Bonn nucleon-nucleon interaction alone or combined with the 2{\pi}-exchange Tucson-Melbourne three-nucleon force. Based on these solutions energy spectra of an outgoing nucleon, at a specified detection angle as well as spectra integrated over that angle, are calculated. By integrating the spectra at a given angle over the energy of the outgoing nucleon the angular distributions of three-nucleon force effects in the breakup process are additionally obtained. Contrary to elastic nucleon-deuteron scattering, where at higher energies significant three-nucleon force effects were encountered for scattering angles around the minimum of the cross section, for the breakup process only moderate effects are found and they are restricted to forward angles. Results of the present investigation show that the large three-nucleon force effects found for some specific complete breakup configurations are reduced substantially in the incomplete spectra when averaging over contributing complete geometries is performed.