arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A. Gardestig.
We argue that the reaction mechanism for the coherent pion production is not known with sufficient accuracy to determine the neutron radius of 208Pb to the claimed precision of 0.03 fm.
We propose to measure the rate \Rd\ for muon capture on the deuteron to better than 1.5% precision. This process is the simplest weak interaction process on a nucleus that can both be calculated and measured to a high degree of precision. The measurement will provide a benchmark result, far more precise than any current experimental information on weak interaction processes in the two-nucleon system. Moreover, it can impact our understanding of fundamental reactions of astrophysical interest, like solar pp fusion and the $ν+d$ reactions observed by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Recent effective field theory calculations have demonstrated, that all these reactions are related by one axial two-body current term, parameterized by a single low-energy constant. Muon capture on the deuteron is a clean and accurate way to determine this constant. Once it is known, the above mentioned astrophysical, as well as other important two-nucleon reactions, will be determined in a model independent way at the same precision as the measured muon capture reaction.
The neutron-neutron scattering length a_nn provides a sensitive probe of charge-symmetry breaking in the strong interaction. Here we summarize our recent efforts to use chiral perturbation theory in order to systematically relate a_nn to the shape of the neutron spectrum in the reaction pi- d --> n n gamma. In particular we show how the chiral symmetry of QCD relates this process to low-energy electroweak reactions such as p p --> d e+ nu_e. This allows us to reduce the uncertainty in the extracted a_nn (mainly due to short-distance physics in the two-nucleon system) by a factor of more than three, to <0.05 fm. We also report first results on the impact that two-nucleon mechanisms of chiral order P^4 have on the pi- d --> n n gamma neutron spectrum.
Motivated by a recent measurement of proton-proton elastic scattering observables up to 3.0 GeV, we investigate the description of those data within models of the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction valid above the pion production threshold. In addition to including the well known Delta resonance we incorporate two low-lying N* resonances, the N*(1440) and the N*(1535), and study their influence on pp and np observables for projectile laboratory kinetic energies up to 1.5 GeV.
We compare two non-relativistic (NR) reduction schemes (heavy-fermion and Foldy-Wouthuysen) that are used to derive low-energy effective-field-theory Lagrangians. We give the explicit transformation between the two types of fields to O(1/m^2), derived from a quite general, relativistic Lagrangian. Beyond leading order the NR reductions always involve the smaller components of the Dirac spinors that are to be integrated out to formulate the NR theory. Even so, the transformation between the NR Lagrangians can be carried out explicitly to O(1/m^2) using a field renormalization, as long as the lower components of the Lagrangian are known. The fixed coefficient corrections to some low-energy constants at O(1/m^2) will depend on the particular scheme chosen, but will match after the field renormalization.
We show that chiral symmetry and gauge invariance enforce relations between the short-distance physics that occurs in a number of electroweak and pionic reactions on light nuclei. Within chiral perturbation theory this is manifested via the appearance of the same axial isovector two-body contact term in pi- d -> n n gamma, p-wave pion production in NN collisions, tritium beta decay, pp fusion, nu d scattering, and the hep reaction. Using a Gamow-Teller matrix element obtained from calculations of pp fusion as input we compute the neutron spectrum obtained in pi- d -> n n gamma. With the short-distance physics in this process controlled from p p -> d e+ nu_e the theoretical uncertainty in the nn scattering length extracted from pi- d -> n n gamma is reduced by a factor larger than three, to <~0.05 fm.
The two-body currents for s-wave pion photoproduction on the NN system are derived to O(Q^4) in chiral perturbation theory. For the interesting case of 3S1 <-> 1S0 transitions, we show that an axial isovector two-nucleon contact term connects the short-distance physics of pion photoproduction to pion production and several important electroweak reactions. We also find that the standard chiral Lagrangian gives a gamma pi pi N N vertex that have not been explicitly mentioned in previous literature. The corresponding Feynman rule is presented here and some processes where it should be important are briefly discussed.
We use realistic two- and three-nucleon interactions in a hybrid chiral-perturbation-theory calculation of the charge-symmetry-breaking reaction $dd\toαπ^0$ to show that a cross section of the experimentally measured size can be obtained using LO and NNLO pion-production operators. This result supports the validity of our power counting scheme and demonstrates the necessity of using an accurate treatment of ISI and FSI.
The near-threshold n p -> d pi0 cross section is calculated in chiral perturbation theory to next-to-leading order in the expansion parameter sqrt{M m_pi}/Lambda_chi. At this order irreducible pion loops contribute to the relevant pion-production operator. While their contribution to this operator is finite, considering initial-and final-state distortions produces a linear divergence in its matrix elements. We renormalize this divergence by introducing a counterterm, whose value we choose in order to reproduce the threshold n p -> d pi0 cross section measured at TRIUMF. The energy-dependence of this cross section is then predicted in chiral perturbation theory, being determined by the production of p-wave pions, and also by energy dependence in the amplitude for the production of s-wave pions. With an appropriate choice of the counterterm, the chiral prediction for this energy dependence converges well.
The reaction pi- d -> n n gamma is calculated in chiral perturbation theory so as to facilitate an extraction of the neutron-neutron scattering length (a_nn). We include all diagrams up to O(Q^3). This includes loop effects in the elementary pi- p -> gamma n amplitude and two-body diagrams, both of which were ignored in previous calculations. We find that the chiral expansion for the ratio of the quasi-free (QF) to final-state-interaction (FSI) peaks in the final-state neutron spectrum converges well. Our third-order calculation of the full spectrum is already accurate to better than 5%. Extracting a_nn from the shape of the entire pi- d -> n n gamma spectrum using our calculation in its present stage would thus be possible at the +-0.8 fm level. A fit to the FSI peak only would allow an extraction of a_nn with a theoretical uncertainty of +-0.2 fm. The effects that contribute to these error bars are investigated. The uncertainty in the $nn$ rescattering wave function dominates. This suggests that the quoted theoretical error of +-0.3 fm for the most recent pi- d -> n n gamma measurement may be optimistic. The possibility of constraining the nn rescattering wave function used in our calculation more tightly--and thus reducing the error--is briefly discussed.
The charge-symmetry-breaking amplitudes for the recently observed d d -> alpha pi0 reaction are investigated. Chiral perturbation theory is used to classify and identify the leading-order terms. Specific forms of the related one- and two-body tree level diagrams are derived. As a first step toward a full calculation, a few tree-level two-body diagrams are evaluated at each considered order, using a simplified set of d and alpha wave functions and a plane-wave approximation for the initial dd state. The leading-order pion-exchange term is shown to be suppressed in this model because of poor overlap of the initial and final states. The higher-order one-body and short-range (heavy-meson-exchange) amplitudes provide better matching between the initial and final states and therefore contribute significantly and coherently to the cross section. The consequences this might have for a full calculation, with realistic wave functions and a more complete set of amplitudes, are discussed.
We report the first observation of the charge symmetry breaking d + d -> 4He + pi0 reaction near threshold at the Indiana University Cyclotron Facility. Kinematic reconstruction permitted the separation of 4He + pi0 events from double radiative capture 4He + gamma + gamma events. We measured total cross sections for neutron pion production of 12.7 +- 2.2 pb at 228.5 MeV and 15.1 +- 3.1 pb at 231.8 MeV. The uncertainty is dominated by statistical errors.
A model for deeply virtual Compton scattering, based on analytical light-cone hadron wave functions is presented and studied at energies currently accessible at Jefferson Laboratory, DESY, and beyond. It is shown that perpendicular vector components play an important role at Q^2 < 10 GeV^2 and that the meson-exchange diagrams are important at all energies. This could significantly impact the physical interpretation of the underlying hadron amplitudes.
A model for deeply virtual Compton scattering, based on analytical light-cone hadron wave functions is presented and studied at energies currently accessible at Jefferson Laboratory and DESY. It is shown that poles and perpendicular vector components play an important role at Q^2 < 10 GeV^2. A Q^2 suppressed diagram has to be included at these low energies, but becomes negligible above 10 GeV^2. Future prospects and developments of this model are discussed.
The production near threshold of isoscalar pion pairs in the pd -> 3He(pi pi)^0 reaction is estimated in a two-step model which successfully describes the production of eta, omega and eta' mesons. A virtual pion beam, generated through an NN -> d pi reaction on one of the nucleons in the deuteron, produces a second pion via a pi N -> pi pi N reaction on the other nucleon. Using the same scale factor as for heavy meson production, the model reproduces the total pi^0 pi^0 production rate determined at an excess energy of 37 MeV. There are some indications in the data for a suppression of events with low pi pi masses, as in the pi^- p -> pi^0 pi^0 n reaction, and this is confirmed within the model. The model suggests that a significant fraction of the charged pion production in the p d -> 3He pi^+ pi^- reaction at Q=70 MeV might be associated with isoscalar pion pairs, though this does not explain the strong dependence observed on the pi^+ pi^- relative momentum angle.
Estimates are made of the d d -> alpha gamma gamma production cross sections in a model where each neutron-proton pair in the beam and target initiates an n p -> d gamma reaction. This approach, which successfully reproduces observables in two-pion production at intermediate energies, suggests that direct two-photon production could provide a very significant background to the measurement of the charge-symmetry-breaking (CSB) reaction d d -> alpha pi0. A non-vanishing CSB cross section has been reported which might be confused with such two-photon production under the given experimental conditions.
The polarized d d -> alpha X reaction at beam energies close to the eta threshold shows very strong structure in the missing mass corresponding to the ABC enhancement. The deuteron tensor analysing power A_yy, and the slope of the vector analysing power A_y with respect to angle, have been measured for this reaction around the forward direction. Both signals are small, and their variations with the alpha-particle momentum are in broad agreement with a theoretical model in which each pair of nucleons in the projectile and target deuterons undergoes pion production through the NN -> d pi reaction.
The dd -> alpha X reaction is studied in a model where each pair of nucleons in the projectile and target deuterons undergoes pion production through the NN -> d pi reaction. The condition that the two deuterons fuse to form an alpha-particle then leads to peaks at small missing masses, the well-known ABC enhancement, but also a broad structure around the maximum missing mass. With a simplified input amplitude the model gives a quantitative description of both the alpha-particle momentum and angular distributions for a deuteron beam energy of 1250 MeV.