Deuteron quadrupole moment and energy dependence of the nucleon-nucleon interaction

Abstract

In the single-nucleon approximation model, the recent experimental value for the quadrupole moment of the deuteron is shown to be too large a quantity to be fitted by energy-independent nucleon-nucleon interactions that yield the experiment values of the triplet scattering length and deuteron binding energy with sufficient precision. The introduction of energy dependence into the nucleon-nucleon interaction loosens the restrictiveness of the shape-independent approximation. This then allows a fit to the deuteron quadrupole moment in the single-nucleon approximation with simultaneous fits to the experimental values of the triplet scattering length and deuteron energy. We argue the necessity of ∼10% corrections to the deuteron asymptotic normalization due to energy dependence. Alternatively, we have to consider corrections to the single-nucleon model from intermediate-state current diagrams, such as the "pair" current, and also meson degrees of freedom, to compensate for the deficiency.