Off-shell equivalence in three-body scattering

Abstract

Explicit relationships are derived connecting the author's boundary condition formalism to the Faddeev theory of three-body scattering. In particular, it is shown that suitable input to the boundary condition formalism can always be chosen so as to exactly reproduce the Faddeev amplitudes. This is also true in the presence of explicit three-body forces. It is further shown that such forces cannot be distinguished from off-shell properties of the two-particle interaction on the basis of three-particle scattering observables. A previous analysis of the $n-d$ breakup reaction is discussed in some detail.