Polarization Effects in Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering

If a beam of unpolarized nucleons is scattered from a target of unpolarized nucleons, the scattered particles are polarized (in a direction normal to the scattering plane) provided that the interaction contains tensor or spin-orbit forces. The polarization can be detected by means of a second similar scattering since the cross section then contains an azimuthal dependence: $I(\theta , \phi )=I_0\left(\theta \right)(1+\epsilon cos\phi ),$ where $\epsilon \left(\theta \right)$ is essentially the square of the polarization. Calculations are carried out by the author for a double $p-p$ scattering using the tensor interaction described in the preceding paper, and for a double $n-p$ scattering using the central and tensor potential of Christian and Hart (containing the "half-exchange" dependence proposed by Serber). The polarization produced by the first scattering at the optimum angle of $\theta \approx 50°$ was found to vary from 6 percent at 40 Mev to 33 percent at 285 Mev for $n-p$ scattering and from 10 percent 129 Mev to 15 percent at 350 Mev for $p-p$ scattering. The $n-p$ results (previously published) are consistent with the azimuthal asymmetry detected in a double scattering experiment reported by L. Wouters.