A STUDY OF THE REACTION p+d~3He+a~ IN THE RESONANCE REGION

Recent interest in the (p, ~c) reactions in nuclei stems from the work ofthe Uppsala group r) on low energy pion production from tZC.and 9Be. It was generally felt that the detailed structure evident in these reactions together with the large momentum transfers involved wouldmake (p, n) reactions a sensitive probe of the high momentumcomponents of nuclear wave~unctions. The disappointing results of some of the early calculations, however, demonstrated a fundamental dilemma : it is difficult to understand the reaction mechanisms involved without detailed knowledge of the nuclear wave functions, and conversely, it is hard tôobtain this information without first settling on the reaction mechanisms. One way out of this dilemma is to study systems that are simple enough so that either the wave functions are known from other sources or the reaction mechanism