Relativistic Effect on Low-Energy Nucleon-Deuteron Scattering

The relativistic effect on differential cross sections, nucleon-to-nucleon and nucleon-to-deuteron polarization transfer coefficients, and the spin correlation function, of nucleon-deuteron elastic scattering is investigated employing several three-dimensional relativistic three-body equations and several nucleon-nucleon potentials. The polarization transfer coefficients are found to be sensitive to the details of the nucleon-nucleon potentials and the relativistic dynamics employed, and prefer trinucleon models with the correct triton binding energy. (To appear in Phys. Rev. C)Comment: pages: 21, LaTex text + 7 ps-figures at the en

The nucleon-nucleon interaction

We review the major progress of the past decade concerning our understanding of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. The focus is on the low-energy region (below pion production threshold), but a brief outlook towards higher energies is also given. The items discussed include charge-dependence, the precise value of the $\pi NN$ coupling constant, phase shift analysis and high-precision NN data and potentials. We also address the issue of a proper theory of nuclear forces. Finally, we summarize the essential open questions that future research should be devoted to.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, iopart.cls style; Topical Review prepared for J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phy

Nonlocality of nucleon interaction and an anomalous off shell behavior of the two-nucleon amplitudes

The problem of the ultraviolet divergences that arise in describing the nucleon dynamics at low energies is considered. By using the example of an exactly solvable model it is shown that after renormalization the interaction generating nucleon dynamics is nonlocal in time. Effects of such nonlocality on low-energy nucleon dynamics are investigated. It is shown that nonlocality in time of nucleon-nucleon interactions gives rise to an anomalous off-shell behavior of the two-nucleon amplitudes that have significant effects on the dynamics of many-nucleon systems.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, ReVTeX

An optimized chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction at next-to-next-to-leading order

We optimize the nucleon-nucleon interaction from chiral effective field theory at next-to-next- to-leading order. The resulting new chiral force NNLOopt yields \chi^2 \approx 1 per degree of freedom for laboratory energies below approximately 125 MeV. In the A = 3, 4 nucleon systems, the contributions of three-nucleon forces are smaller than for previous parametrizations of chiral interactions. We use NNLOopt to study properties of key nuclei and neutron matter, and demonstrate that many aspects of nuclear structure can be understood in terms of this nucleon-nucleon interaction, without explicitly invoking three-nucleon forces.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Linear Extrapolation of Ultrarelativistic Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering to Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions

We use a Glauber-like approach to describe very energetic nucleus-nucleus collisions as a sequence of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. No free parameters are needed: all the information comes from simple parametrizations of nucleon-nucleon collision data. Produced mesons are assumed not to interact with each other or with the original baryons. Comparisons are made to published experimental measurements of baryon rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, negative hadron rapidity and transverse momentum distributions, average multiplicities of pions, kaons, hyperons, and antihyperons, and zero degree energy distributions for sulfur-sulfur collisions at 200 GeV/c per nucleon and for lead-lead collisions at 158 GeV/c per nucleon. Good agreement is found except that the number of strange particles produced, especially antihyperons, is too small compared with experiment. We call this model LEXUS: it is a baseline linear extrapolation of ultrarelativistic nucleon-nucleon scattering to heavy ion collisions.Comment: 37 pages, 15 figures, LaTeX, uses rotating.st