Meson Tail Effect and Treatment of Proton-Proton Scattering Data

The fit of experimental material on proton-proton scattering by phenomenological potentials is reviewed with the inclusion of observations by Heydenburg-Little in the 300-kev region and of Cork at 30 Mev. Weighting of data by a criterion based on internal consistency is employed. Data obtained by means of Van de Graaff machines are used to determine the best fits for different shapes of potential energy curves. Other data are compared with the resultant ($f$, $E$) plots graphically. A trend towards agreement with the long-tailed Yukawa and exponential well potentials is noticeable among the supposedly more accurate measurements of Rouvina and of Cork. The meson potential $-\frac{C{e}^{-\frac{r}{a}}}{\left(\frac{r}{a}\right)}$ with $C=(93.4\mathrm{}\pm 1.0)m{c}^2$, $a=(0.412\mathrm{}\pm 0.002)\frac{e^2}{m{c}^2}$ fits experiment and corresponds to a meson mass of $333\pm 2m$, the limits of error being stated above somewhat arbitrarily.