Parity non-conservation in low energy scattering of nucleons by light nuclei: (I). Theoretical framework

The low energy scattering of nucleons by ²H, ³He and ⁴He are analyzed for parity non-conserving effects. The asymmetry in the total cross section of longitudinally polarized projectiles is formulated in terms of the optical theorem and a distorted wave Born approximation. For two nucleons at low energies it is only necessary to consider l = 0 to l = 1 matrix elements of the weak nucleon-nucleon potential. The asymmetries in the scattering from nuclear targets are related to the parameters of an effective weak nucleon-nucleon potential, so that they may be used to help differentiate between various proposed theoretical potentials.