Experimental studies of nuclear interactions in few-nucleon systems

Abstract

Systems of three nucleons (3N) can be treated as a testing ground for modern approaches to describe nuclear interactions. At intermediate energies, observables for 3N systems are sensitive to subtle effects of the dynamics beyond the pairwise nucleon–nucleon force, so-called 3N-force (3NF). For years the search for 3NF has been motivating precise measurements of observables of elastic nucleon–deuteron scattering and for the deuteron breakup reaction. Breakup of a deuteron in collision with a proton leads to the final state of three free nucleons, with variety of possible kinematic configurations, revealing locally enhanced sensitivity to particular aspects of the interaction dynamics, like 3NF, Coulomb force between protons, or relativistic effects. This feature makes the breakup reaction a very versatile tool for validation of the theoretical description. Reactions involving four nucleons pose immense challenges with regard to exact theoretical calculations for such systems. Nonetheless, they attract attention due to expected enhanced sensitivity to certain aspects of the nuclear dynamics, manifesting themselves in various channels and configurations. The most important results of recent experimental studies of 3N and 4N systems at intermediate energies are discussed. A brief survey of the ongoing projects is given.