Nuclear information from the proton spin observables in the (p, p′) reactions at intermediate energies

A set of proton spin observables $D_{\xi }$, $\xi =0, x, y, \mathrm{and} z$, is described which provides selective information on the tensor components of the collision matrix describing the ($p, p^{\prime }$) reaction. These $D_{\xi }$ are related linearly to the experimentally determined components of the depolarization tensor. Simple relations are derived between the $D_{\xi }$ and both the spin components of the nucleon-nucleon amplitudes and the nuclear multipole form factors. For unnatural parity transitions the observable $D_x$ is related to the axial longitudinal form factor which does not enter in the ($e, e^{\prime }$) transition amplitudes for the one photon exchange mechanism.