Polarization Effects in Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering

If a beam of unpolarized nucleons is scattered from a target of unpolarized nucleons, the scattered particles are polarized (in a direction normal to the scattering plane) provided that the interaction contains tensor or spin-orbit forces. The polarization can be detected by means of a second similar scattering since the cross section then contains an azimuthal dependence: I(θ, φ)=I₀(θ)(1+ɛφ), where ɛ(θ) is essentially the square of the polarization. Calculations are carried out by the author for a double p-p scattering using the tensor interaction described in the preceding paper, and for a double n-p scattering using the central and tensor potential of Christian and Hart (containing the "half-exchange" dependence proposed by Serber). The polarization produced by the first scattering at the optimum angle of θ~50° was found to vary from 6 percent at 40 Mev to 33 percent at 285 Mev for n-p scattering and from 10 percent 129 Mev to 15 percent at 350 Mev for p-p scattering. The n-p results (previously published) are consistent with the azimuthal asymmetry detected in a double scattering experiment reported by L. Wouters.