Angular Distributions of Protons from the (d, p) Reaction with Deuteron Energies below the Coulomb Barrier

Cross sections and angular distributions for the ($d, p$) reaction to a known $l=1\mathrm{}$ single-particle state of the captured neutron have been measured for seven target nuclides between Ti and Ni. Targets with effective thicknesses of several hundred kev were used with deuteron bombarding energies of 3.8 and 4.5 Mev. The angular distributions were found to be similar, with approximately 2:1 forward peaking and a broad maximum at about 60°. In addition, a sharp but relatively weak peak was observed at about 25° for the lighter of the target nuclides. This is the angle at which the theory of Butler would predict a maximum for neutron capture with $l_n=1\mathrm{}$. Analysis of the proton spectra and angular distributions indicates that compound nucleus formation contributes less than 25% to the reaction yield at these deuteron energies.