The reaction ${n} {p} \to {p} {p} π^{-}$ from threshold up to 570 MeV

Abstract

The reaction ${n} {p} \to {p} {p} π^{-}$ has been studied in a kinematically complete measurement with a large acceptance time-of-flight spectrometer for incident neutron energies between threshold and 570 MeV. The proton-proton invariant mass distributions show a strong enhancement due to the pp($^{1}{S}_{0}$) final state interaction. A large anisotropy was found in the pion angular distributions in contrast to the reaction ${p}{p} \to {p}{p} π^{0}$. At small energies, a large forward/backward asymmetry has been observed. From the measured integrated cross section $σ({n}{p} \to {\rm p}{p} π^{-})$, the isoscalar cross section $σ_{01}$ has been extracted. Its energy dependence indicates that mainly partial waves with Sp final states contribute. Note: Due to a coding error, the differential cross sections ${d σ}/{d M_{pp}}$ as shown in Fig. 9 are too small by a factor of two, and inn Table 3 the differential cross sections ${d σ}/{d Ω_π^{*}}$ are too large by a factor of $10/2π$. The integrated cross sections and all conclusions remain unchanged. A corresponding erratum has been submitted and accepted by European Physics Journal.

18 pages, 16 figures