Physics with diproton final states at ANKE-COSY

Abstract

The study of processes with production of proton pairs with small excitation energy (diprotons) provides a new approach to hadron interactions at intermediate energies. It is especially instructive due to comparison with processes where a deuteron is produced in the same kinematics. Provided that the momentum transfer is high enough the diprotons are found presumably in the 1S0 state, and this simplifies the theoretical analysis. The ANKE spectrometer provides the possibility to select the diprotons with sufficiently high excitation energy resolution. A number of processes including pp → {pp}sn, production of one and two pions in pN collisions, and the pp → {pp}sγ process, have been investigated.