Depolarization in proton inclusive inelastic scattering and in the (d,p) reaction on medium-weight nuclei

The energy-averaged depolarization parameter K_y^y′ has been measured for the inelastic scattering of 18 MeV protons from ⁵⁴Fe, ⁶³Cu and ⁹²Mo at 45°, 90° and 135°, and for 14.35 MeV protons from ⁶³Cu at 45° and 135°. In all cases K_y^y′ varies from approximately unity for scattering with low energy loss to approximately zero for inelastic scattering to high excitation energies. The change from one of these values to the other occurs over a region ≈ 6 MeV wide centered at about 5 MeV excitation. A simple two-component model fits both the K_y^y′ and inelastic crosssection data. K_y^y′ has also been measured for the ⁵⁴Fe($\text{d}$, $\text{p}$)Fe reaction with 16 MeV deuterons incident. Here K_y^y′ changes from approximately the maximum possible value, $\text{2}\text{3}$, to about zero in a 6 MeV region centered at roughly 13 MeV excitation. The ($\text{d}$,$\text{p}$) data can be fitted by an extension of the model used for the proton scattering data.