Three-Body Interaction Effects in High-Energy Scattering from Deuterons

Abstract

Corrections to the Glauber multiple-scattering expansion due to three-body interactions are studied. The particular interaction considered corresponds to the scattering of an incident particle from a pion being exchanged by the two nucleons composing a deuteron. It is shown that the resulting correction to the scattering amplitude must be modified to take into account the possibility of absorption on the nucleons. A crude numerical estimate indicates corrections of about -0.4% to the total cross section at very high energy. The effect on the differential cross section at large momentum transfer is difficult to estimate reliably, but the formulas obtained suggest that the corrections could become quite important unless there is a strong off-shell damping mechanism.