Searh for three-body force effects in elastic proton-deuteron scattering Original Research Article

The effect of three-body forces (TBF) has been investigated in elastic proton-deuteron scattering. Measurements of cross sections and analyzing powers have resulted in very precise data over a large range of scattering angles for incident proton energies of 108, 120, 135, 150, 170 and 190 MeV. The results have been compared with the state-of-the-art Faddeev calculations including various two and three-body forces and very recent calculations in the framework of chiral-pertubation theory. Even though the inclusion of three-body forces in the calculation reduces the discrepancy between the calculations and the data, there remains large differences, especially at backward angles, which increases as a function of increasing beam energy.