Elastic scattering of polarized deuterons from Al, Si and Ni between 7 and 11 MeV

Polarization parameters have been determined for deuteron elastic scattering from ²⁷Al, Si and ⁶⁰Ni at energies between 7 and 11 MeV and laboratory scattering angles from 30° to 135°. The vector polarization, iT₁₁, and two tensor parameters T₂₀ and T₂₂, were measured by scattering polarized and unpolarized deuterons which were obtained from a tandem accelerator. The largest polarization was |iT₁₁| ≈ 0.3 and |T₂₀| ≈ 0.2 for ²⁷Al at 11 MeV. For ⁶⁰Ni, the observed polarizations were substantially smaller. Angular distributions of the unpolarized cross section were also measured for ²⁷Al and Si. An optical-model analysis of the polarization and cross-section data was performed. The vector polarization was reproduced reasonably well by a vector spin-orbit coupling of similar strength as found for nucleon scattering. A tensor interaction appears to be needed to account for the observed tensor polarizations.