Recent Developments in Few-Nucleon Scattering

Abstract

Using modern nucleon-nucleon interactions in the description of the A = 3, 4 nuclei, it is not possible to reproduce both the three- and four-nucleon binding energies simultaneously. This is one manifestation of the necessity of including a three-nucleon force in the nuclear Hamiltonian. Several models of the three-nucleon force exist and are applied in the description of light nuclei. However, as it is discussed here, a simultaneous description of the three- and four-body binding energies and the n − d doublet scattering length seems to be problematic. Accordingly, a comparative study of some of these models is performed. In a different analysis, we study applications of the Kohn Variational Principle, formulated in terms of integral relations, to describe N − d scattering processes.