NUCLEAR-BINDING CORRECTION TO SCATTERING AMPLITUDE AT INTERMEDIATE ENERGY

The correction to the nucleon scattering amplitude induced by the nuclear-binding potential is analyzed. Our result shows that the nuclear-binding potential corrects the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitude, i.e., its absolute value, by 2% and its phase by 12°in the case of 1-GeV proton scattering from He4. Thus, the correction to the absolute value is negligible, but the ratio of the real and imaginary parts of the scattering amplitude is appreciably changed. The correction varies with the incident energy and the momentum transfer. Therefore, the angular distributions of proton scattering from nuclei are not corrected very much, except at the minima. The depth of the first minimum is affected, since it is very sensitive to the phase of the scattering amplitude. Our result is consistent with the experimental results which indicate that the first minimum may be absent in proton scattering from deuterons, and that, on the other hand, the minimum is clearly manifested in scattering from He4, C12, and O16. The values of the phase of the nucleon scattering amplitude, for the best fits to the experiments, are different from its value for scattering from nucleons. © 1969 The American Physical Society.