Single-Pion Production in pp Collisions at 0.95 GeV/c (II)

Abstract

The single-pion production reactions $pp\to dπ^+$, $pp\to npπ^+$ and $pp\to ppπ^0$ were measured at a beam momentum of 0.95 GeV/c ($T_p \approx$ 400 MeV) using the short version of the COSY-TOF spectrometer. The central calorimeter provided particle identification, energy determination and neutron detection in addition to time-of-flight and angle measurements from other detector parts. Thus all pion production channels were recorded with 1-4 overconstraints. Main emphasis is put on the presentation and discussion of the $npπ^+$ channel, since the results on the other channels have already been published previously. The total and differential cross sections obtained are compared to theoretical calculations. In contrast to the $ppπ^0$ channel we find in the $npπ^+$ channel a strong influence of the $Δ$ excitation already at this energy close to threshold. In particular we find a $(3 cos^2Θ+ 1)$ dependence in the pion angular distribution, typical for a pure s-channel $Δ$ excitation and identical to that observed in the $dπ^+$ channel. Since the latter is understood by a s-channel resonance in the $^1D_2$ $pn$ partial wave, we discuss an analogous scenario for the $pnπ^+$ channel.