Excitation of the Giant-Resonance Continuum with Intermediate-Energy Protons

The angular distribution of the continuum in the reaction ${}_{}{}^{116}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Sn}(p, p^{\prime }){}_{}{}^{116}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Sn}$ at $E_p=800\mathrm{}$ MeV shows a marked decrease in cross section toward small scattering angles (${\theta }_L<6\mathrm{}°$). This behavior is well described by a single scattering model which includes the effects of Pauli blocking. Continuum analyzing power data are found to be very close to the values for free $p-p$ and $n-p$ scattering. However, spin-flip probabilities in ${}_{}{}^{208}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Pb}$ ($E_p=400\mathrm{}$ MeV) and ${}_{}{}^{90}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Zr}$ ($E_p=500\mathrm{}$ MeV) are significantly smaller than the free nucleon values.