Nuclear reactions of particles with spin

Abstract

The description of reactions between spin-polarized particles not only needs a proper description of the spin states of the nuclei but in addition requires careful definitions of coordinate systems. Whereas in unpolarized reactions in- and outgoing particles define one reaction plane only, each polarized particle adds an additional preferential direction to the system with a specific azimuthal dependence. This is especially complicated for reactions involving more than one polarized particle, i.e. polarization-transfer and spin-correlation experiments. The roles of parity conservation (and violation) as well as time-reversal invariance in nuclear reactions are disscussed. © 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.