Hadron and NuclearPhysicswithElectromagneticProbes K. Maruyamaand H. Okuno (Editors) 2000 Elsevier ScienceB.V. All rightsreserved.

177

Quasi-deuteron picture for 3He and 4He photodisintegration

S. Hirenzaki, Y. Umemoto and K. Kume

Physics Department,

Nara Women's

University, Nara 630-8506, Japan

We have developed a phenomenological quasi-deuteron model to describe photodisintegration reactions of 3He and 4He at intermediate photon energies and compared the results with experimental data obtained by the TAGX group in which contributions from photon absorption by p n pairs were selectively observed. The data can be reproduced reasonably well. However there still remain certain discrepancies between calculated results and data. 1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

Photodisintegration reactions of light nuclei have been studied for a long time both theoretically and experimentally. Experimental results for these reactions are naively expected to be reproduced precisely by theoretical works, since the reactions are induced by the well-known electromagnetic interaction and it is believed that the structure of few-nucleon systems can be calculated reliably. Despite of this expectation, there still remain certain discrepancies between experimental data and theoretical results. We are interested in the origins of these discrepancies. The photodisintegration of nuclei was studied theoretically using the quasi-deuteron model by Levinger [I] and later by Futami and Miyazima [2]. They expressed the photodisintegration cross section of nuclei using those of deuteron with a certain factor, the so called Levinger factor, which accounts essentially for two effects, the relative wavefunction of the pn pair and the effective number of deuterons in the target nucleus. Recently, the Levinger :factor was updated and determined for many nuclei using current data of the rms radius [3]. This enables us to obtain information regarding the relative wavefunction of pn pair. The accuracy of the model was also investigated for a wide range of momentum transfer values for trinucleon systems [4]. These results reproduce the experimental data qualitatively well, indicating that photon absorption by a pn pair is important in photonuclear reactions. Since 1987, new experimental data for photodisintegration reactions of light nuclei have been obtained by the TAGX group [5]. They have obtained kinematically complete data of 3He(3,, pn)p and 4He(~, pn)d for the first time [6,7]. They have strived to separate whole events into two- and multi-nucleon absorption processes using the momentum ordering method [8]. We are very interested in the data, since the contributions from only photon absorption by pn pairs are selectively observed. It should be possible to precisely calculate these contributions in the quasi-deuteron picture. Another interesting point is that the data are completely exclusive which do not include any extra particles like pions in the

178

final state. Thus, we think it extremely important to investigate this data to know whether it can be understood theoretically. To this time, the 3He(~/, pn)p reaction has been studied theoretically by Wilhelm et al. [9,10]. They considered both triplet (i.e. deuteron channel) and singlet configurations for initial pn pairs in the nucleus, and included photon interaction with nucleonic, mesic, and A currents. They calculated the cross sections and spin observables and found that the data for total cross sections deviate from the theoretical results at lower energies (E~ _< 200 MeV). Since their results for differential cross sections are not in a form that could be compared with the data directly, there exist no comparisons between data and theory for angular dependent observables [10]. The 4He(7, pn)d data [7] indicate that the total cross section has a strong energy dependence around E~ = 150 MeV. This has not been investigated theoretically. Theoretical results by Tezuka [11] are consistent with the data for higher energies, but there are no theoretical calculations which can be compared to the data over the entire incident photon energy region. Their results include the attenuation factor to account for the distortion effects, and the final nuclear state is not specified as a deuteron. In this paper we attempt to understand the reactions 3He(~/,pn)pspectator and 4He(7, Pn)dspectator theoretically. For this purpose we investigate both 3He and 4He photodisintegraion reactions within the same theoretical framework and try to reproduce all data for both reactions simultaneously. We calculate all observables in suitable forms which can be compared to the data directly. Our theoretical studies are reported in Ref. [12] in detail. 2. F O R M A L I S M In this section we describe our phenomenological model which is applied to both 3He(~/,pn)psp~ctator and 4He('),,pn)dsp~ctator reactions. Since we would like to calculate all observables in suitable forms to compare directly with the data, we evaluate the finalstate three-body phase space exactly. The cross section for the A ( 3 ' , p n ) B reaction can be written as

do

/~1/2(8, 0, MI)

[TA[ 2 (2~) i 5 54 (PB+Pp+Pn--PA--P'~)MBMpMnMA dapBd3ppd3pn ,(1)

where A indicates the target nucleus, 3He and/or 4He, and B is the spectator particle in the final-state, Pspectator and/or dspectato r. The quantity s corresponds to the Mandelstam variable in the initial 7 + A system. We integrate the final-state phase space appropriately for each experimental result. In (1), A(--.) is the K/illen function, which is introduced to properly normalize the cross section by the initial photon flux, defined as A(a, b, c) - a 2 + b2 + c 2 - 2 a b - 2 b c - 2ac.

(2)

In our model, we consider only the deuteron channel for the initial pn pair in the nucleus and express the square of the amplitude of the photon absorption by the nucleon pair,

179

using the differential cross section (~-~) of d(7,

p)n

reaction as
En I

I T(o'pn ~ pn) 12- ( d~

0, M )(271") 2 Ep nu

MpM Md l pp I'

(3)

where all kinematical variables are evaluated in the center-of-mass frame. We use a phenomenological fit of the ( ~ ) data [13], which reproduce the d(~/,p)n cross section well in the wide energy region E~ = 20-440 MeV. In order to calculate the observables for He target cases, we postulate the quasi-deuteron picture and describe the square of the 7 absorption amplitude by the He nucleus as

I TA [2--I T(Tpn --~ pn)121gJ(PB)pn-B[2,

where we evaluate

12 using Mandelstam's s and t variables for the two nucleon system that absorbs the photon. r is the relative wave function between the pn pair and the spectator particle B in the He nucleus, which is assumed to take a Gaussian form,

[T(Tpn ~ pn)

(27C)a/2(p2~I~)3/4 exp

-p}],

(4)

where pf represents the Fermi momentum between the pn pair and the spectator particle B and is roughly estimated to be 146 MeV for 3He and 205 MeV for 4He from the data of the charge radii. PB is evaluated in the laboratory frame. Here we would like to describe some features of the present model. The advantages of our model are that we can calculate any cross sections that can be compared to the data directly for both 3He and 4He target cases and that we can calculate observables in the entire energy region of interest using experimental information regarding the deuteron photodisintegration reactions. However, we include neither the effect of the deuteron spectroscopic factors nor the effects of the compact wave function of the pn pair in the target He. Both effects are expected to be insensitive to the incident photon energy and to change the overall normalization of the cross sections. Thus, we are free to introduce a constant factor into each reaction as a parameter to normalize the absolute value of the cross sections when it is necessary. In the model we do not include contributions from the singlet pn pair in the initial state, which were evaluated in Refs. [9] and [10] and shown to be approximately 50 #b at E~ = 100 MeV for the 3He(7, pn)Pspect~tor total cross section. This contribution decreases monotonically as a function of E~ and is known to give a minor contribution to the photodisintegration reactions at higher energies. We should also mention here that the final state interaction is partly included in the model from the beginning, since we have used the fit to the data of the deuteron case.
3. N U M E R I C A L RESULTS

In this section we compare our calculated total cross sections with experimental data for the 3He(7, Pn)Pspectator reaction and the 4He(~/, pn)dspectator reaction taken by the TAGX group [6-8]. Other numerical results are found in Ref. [12].

180 We show the total cross sections of the 3He photodisintegration by two body (pn pair) photon absorption processes in Fig. 1 as a function of the incident photon energy. The experimental total cross sections are obtained by integrating the differential cross section data over the observed kinematical region. The contribution from the unobserved kinematical region is corrected for by extrapolation using the two-nucleon absorption model [14]. Theoretical results only include the deuteron channel of the initial pn pair in the target. As we can see from the figure, the data show the peak at E~ = 225 MeV, which seems to be due to the A excitation, while the calculated results predict this peak at 275 MeV. This difference could be explained by inclusion of the siglet configuration of the pn pair in the initial state, which was evaluated by Wilhelm et al [9,10] and shown to be larger for lower photon energies. However, the energy dependence of the theoretical results will be caused to deviate more greatly from the data by including the singlet contribution at E~ = 1 2 5 - 205 MeV. In this energy region, the experimental values increase monotonically with photon energy, while the theoretical results may become flat or even possess the opposite energy dependence by including the singlet contribution. Our results are consistent with those calculated by Wilhelm et al [9,10] for the initial pn pair in the deuteron channel.

20

15

++
-4.
I I I I

~00

zoo

300

400

Ey (MeV)

Figure 1. Total cross section of the 3He("/,pn)pspectator reaction as a function of incident photon energy. The solid curve indicates the result with p/=150 MeV. Data are taken from ref. [6].

Total cross sections of the 4He(-7, pn)dspectator reaction were measured at several photon energies by the TAGX group [7] and found to have a strong energy dependence around E~ = 150 MeV. This energy dependence is almost like a 'discontinuity' to the lower energy data taken by different groups [15-18]. We show the calculated results in Fig.2 with varing pf over a wide range to investigate the possibility of reproducing the energy dependence by changing the wavefunction of 4He. We also multiplied the calculated cross sections

181

by a factor to reproduce the A peak. We find that our results do not reproduce the experimental energy dependence. It is difficult to reproduce the observed 'discontinuity'.
80C
eel t e i I i I 't i 9 i 9 ",. lriL

60C _
e e e e e # I

40C

200

0z

6789

100

Ey (MeV)

Figure 2. Total cross section of the 4He(7,pn)dsp~aato~ reaction as a function of incident photon energy. The lines indicate calculated result with py = 100 MeV (dashed curve), 200 MeV (solid curve), 300 MeV (dotted curve), and 4OO MeV (dash-dotted curve), respectively. Calculated results are normalized to reproduce the experimental peak height in the A energy region. The normalization factors are 1.45 for pi = 100 MeV, 1.53 for PI = 200 MeV, 1.67 for pi = 300 MeV, and 1.88 for pi = 400 MeV. Data are taken from refs. [7] (solid circles), [15] (squares), [16] (crosses), [17] (open circles), and [18] (triangles).

We would like to mention here the recent work by Efros et al, [19] in which the total 4He photodisintegration cross section is studied in the giant resonance energy region. In addition to the total 4He photodisintegration cross section, they have shown separately the contributions due to the two-body decay channels, 4He(7, n)aHe and 4He(-y,p)aH. We can estimate the absolute value of the cross section in our case (3-body decay) by subtracting the 2-body decay contribution from the total. It is approximately 1 mb at E~ ~ 40 MeV, which is even larger than our largest result (~ 500 pb). If this is correct, the older data at lower energies may include large errors.
4. S U M M A R Y

In this paper, we have investigated the photodisintegration reactions 3He(v, pn)pspectato r and 4He(v, pn)dspectator which have been observed by the TAGX group. We have investigated both reactions using a single theoretical model and compared the calculated results with experimental data. In the model, we have assumed the quasideuteron mechanism to describe the photon absorption amplitude using the experimental information of deuteron photodisintegration. We have introduced the relative wave func-

182 tion between the pn pair and the spectator particle in the target He and treated the phase space integration carefully in order to calculate the observables in a suitable coordinate system to compare with the data. Using the present theoretical model, we can calculate observables in entire energy region of interest and can compare with the experimenal data directly. The final state interacton is partly included in the model since we have used the fit to the data of deuteron photodisintegration. Our model is found to reproduce the gross features of all the existing data, but certain descrepancies remain. These descrepancies are (i) the energy dependence of the total cross section for aHe(7 , pn)Pspectator and (ii) the step-like change of the total cross section of 4He(v, Prt)dspectator reaction around E.y ~ 150 MeV. We found that these discrepancies are difficult to reproduce with the present phenomenological model. Thus we belive that these discrepancies involve important information on the essential differences between the photodisintegration reactions of aHe and 4He and that of the deuteron and should be treated carefully. For the 4He target case, the step-like change could be due to the inclusion of large error for some parts of experimental data. For further studies, we need to develop a microscopic model based on accurate wave functions of the initial and final states and photon interaction with hadronic currents in order to understand these reactions more deeply. We think it is very important to calculate the observables in a suitable form using the microscopic model to compare with data. We would like to thank the TAGX group for stimulating discussions. REFERENCES 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. J. S. Levinger, Phys. Rev. 84 (1951) 43. Y. Futami and T. Miyazima, Prog. Theor. Phys. 46 (1971) 802. O. A. P. Tavares and M. L. Terranova, J. of Phys. G18 (1992) 521. B. Gangopadhyay and J. S. Levinger, J. of Phys.G18 (1992) 1933. K. Maruyama et al., Nucl. Inst. Meth., A376 (1996) 335. T. Emura et al., Phys. Rev. C49 (1994) 597. K. Maruyama et al., Phys. Lett. B393 (1997) 295. S. Endo., J. Sci. Hiroshima Univ., 57A (1993) 1. P. Wilhelm, J. A. Niskanen, and H. Arenh6vel, Phys. Lett. B335 (1994) 109. J. A. Niskanen, P. Wilhelm, and H. Arenh6vel, Nucl. Phys. A586 (1995) 693. H. Tezuka, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 57 (1988) 3766. Y. Umemoto, S. Hirenzaki and K. Kume, Prog. Theor. Phys. 101 (1999) 627. P. Rossi et al., Phys. Rev. C40 (1989) 2412. S. Endo, private communication. S. M. Doran et al, Nucl. Phys. A559 (1993) 347. Yu. A. Arkatov et al, JETP Lett. 9 (1969), 278; Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 10 (1970) 639. A. N. Gorbunov and V. M. Spridinov, Sov. Phys. JETP 34 (1958) 600; A. N. Gorbunov, Sov. J. Nucl. Phys. 10 (1969) 268; Proc. P. N. Lebedev Phys. Inst. 71 (1974)1. 18. F. Balestra et al, Nuovo Cim. 49A (1979) 575; F. Balestra et al, Nuovo Cim. 38A (1977) 145. 19. V. D. Efros, W. Leidemann, and G. Orlandini, Phys. Rev. Lett. 78 (1997) 4015.
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