Abstract
Long-standing anomalies in -nucleus integral cross sections could be resolved by extending the impulse-approximation optical-potential framework to incorporate absorption on pairs of nucleons. Substantially improved fits to the data at are obtained. An upper bound on the absorption cross section per nucleon is derived, . We conjecture that the underlying microscopic absorption process is , where is the newly discovered exotic , , pentaquark baryon, and estimate that is a fraction of millibarn. Comments are made on production reactions on nuclei.
- Received 15 November 2004
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.072301
©2005 American Physical Society