Relation of the Deuteron Photodisintegration Cross Section to the Neutron-Proton Force

It is shown that for a very general class of neutron-proton triplet $S$-phase shifts, given as functions of the energy, the experimental deuteron photodisintegration cross section singles out the neutron-proton central triplet potential with the shortest exponential tail. It is therefore powerful evidence for a short decay length of this potential, evidence which is unobtainable from the low-energy scattering data and the binding energy alone.