Neutron-neutron distribution of the triton from pionless EFT

Abstract

We compute the neutron-neutron relative-energy distribution of the triton following the hard knockout of the proton in pionless effective field theory. This distribution can be used to study universality as well as to obtain information on the neutron-neutron interaction. Especially, one can infer the scattering length from fitting theory predictions for the shape of the distribution to experimental data. To obtain the distribution for the triton, we first solve the ground-state three-body problem using momentum-space Faddeev equations. Next, we include the neutron-neutron final-state interaction by applying the corresponding Møller operator to the ground state. We present leading-order (LO) and next-to-leading order (NLO) pionless effective field theory results with quantified uncertainties. At NLO, we include the effective ranges semi-perturbatively. We conclude, that pionless EFT works reliably as expected and that the neutron-neutron distribution of the triton shows a significant sensitivity to the scattering length.

arXiv comment18 pages, 7 figures. Further explanations, discussions and appendices with figures added. Results unchanged. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. C

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