Determination of Relative Signs of Neutron and Proton Transition Matrix Elements: Strong Cancellation Observed for the <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mmultiscripts><mrow><mi mathvariant="normal">S</mi></mrow><mprescripts></mprescripts><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>34</mn></mrow><mrow></mrow><mrow></mrow></mmultiscripts></mrow></math>(0<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><mmultiscripts><mrow><mo>→</mo></mrow><mprescripts></mprescripts><mrow></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo></mrow><mrow></mrow><mrow></mrow></mmultiscripts></mrow></math><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mrow><msubsup><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>+</mo></mrow></msubsup></mrow></math>) Transition

A. M. Bernstein; R. A. Miskimen; B. Quinn; S. A. Wood; M. V. Hynes; G. S. Blanpied; B. G. Ritchie; V. R. Brown

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.49.451

Determination of Relative Signs of Neutron and Proton Transition Matrix Elements: Strong Cancellation Observed for the ${}^{34}S$ (0 ${}^{+}\to$ $2_{2}^{+}$ ) Transition

A. M. Bernstein, R. A. Miskimen, B. Quinn, S. A. Wood, M. V. Hynes, G. S. Blanpied, B. G. Ritchie, and V. R. Brown

Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 451 – Published 16 August 1982

Abstract

Hadron scattering is shown to be sensitive to the relative sign of neutron and proton transition matrix elements. The relative signs for the $2_{2}^{+}$ states are determined to be positive for ${}^{26}{Mg}$ , ${}^{30}{Si}$ , and ${}^{42}{Ca}$ , and negative for ${}^{34}S$ on the basis of proton differential cross-section measurements at 650 and 800 MeV. Suppression of the one-step amplitude in the ${}^{34}S$ $2_{2}^{+}$ state causes the interference of one-step and multistep reactions to be experimentally apparent.