Measurement of the proton polarization in the 3He(d,p)4He Rection between 2.0 and 6.0 MeV

Angular distributions of the polarization of ³He(d, p)⁴He protons have been measured for unpolarized deuterons with laboratory energies of 1.99, 2.81, 3.94 and 6.00 MeV. The polarizations were determined from the left-right asymmetry of elastic scattering through 60° in ⁴He gas using a vaned polarimeter whose analyzing power was computed by trajectory tracing from the known p-α polarizations. A contour diagram of proton polarization for deuteron energies of 1 to 12 MeV is presented. A Legendre polynomial expansion of four or five terms has been fitted to the products p(θ)σ(θ). The coefficients of the expansions of these and other measurements show resonance-like behaviour at ⁵Li excitations of 20.0 and 20.9 MeV. The vector-polarized beam and polarized-target analyzing powers are compared with the proton polarization. The proton polarizations are in good agreement with the ³H(d, n)⁴He neutron polarizations when compared at the same entrance-channel energy but disagree when compared at equal exit-channel energies or compound-nucleus excitations.