Abstract
We report a measurement of the spin polarization of the recoiling neutron in deuterium photodisintegration, utilizing a new large acceptance polarimeter within the Crystal Ball at MAMI. The measured photon energy range of 300-700 MeV provides the first measurement of recoil neutron polarization at photon energies where the quark substructure of the deuteron plays a role, thereby providing important new constraints on photodisintegration mechanisms. A very high neutron polarization in a narrow structure centered around Eγ∼570 MeV is observed, which is inconsistent with current theoretical predictions employing nucleon resonance degrees of freedom. A Legendre polynomial decomposition suggests this behavior could be related to the excitation of the d∗(2380) hexaquark.
Original language | American English |
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Article number | 132001 |
Journal | Physical Review Letters |
Volume | 124 |
Issue number | 13 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 3 Apr 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We are indebted to M. Zurek for providing us data on analyzing powers. This work has been supported by the U.K. STFC (ST/L00478X/2, ST/P004385/2, ST/T002077/1, ST/L005824/1, 57071/1, 50727/1) grants, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SFB443, SFB/TR16, and SFB1044), DFG-RFBR (Grant No. 09-02-91330), Schweizerischer Nationalfonds (Contracts No. 200020-175807, No. 200020-156983, No. 132799, No. 121781, No. 117601), the U.S. Department of Energy (Offices of Science and Nuclear Physics, Awards No. DE-SC0014323, No. DEFG02-99-ER41110, No. DE-FG02-88ER40415, No. DEFG02-01-ER41194) and National Science Foundation (Grants No. NSF OISE-1358175; No. PHY-1039130, No. PHY-1714833, No. IIA-1358175), INFN (Italy), and NSERC of Canada (Grant No. FRN-SAPPJ2015-00023).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.