Three-nucleon force contribution in the distorted-wave theory of (d,p) reactions

The distorted-wave theory of A ( d , p ) B reactions, widely used to analyze experimental data, is based on a Hamiltonian that includes only two-nucleon interactions. However, numerous studies of few-nucleon systems and many modern developments in nuclear structure theory show the importance of the three-nucleon ( 3 N ) force. The purpose of this paper is to study the contribution of the 3 N force of the simplest possible form to the A ( d , p ) B reaction amplitude. This contribution is given by a new term that accounts for the interaction of the neutron and proton in the incoming deuteron with one of the target nucleons. This term involves a new type of nuclear matrix elements containing an infinite number of target excitations in addition to the main part associated with the traditional overlap function between A and B . The nuclear matrix elements are calculated for double-closed shell targets within a mean field theory where target excitations are shown to be equivalent to exchanges between valence and core nucleons. These matrix elements can be readily incorporated into available reaction codes if the 3 N interaction has a spin-independent zero-range form. Distorted-wave calculations are presented for a contact 3 N force with the volume integral fixed by the chiral effective field theory at the next-to-next-to-leading order. For this particular choice, the 3 N contribution is noticeable, especially at high deuteron incident energies. No 3 N effects are seen for incident energies below the Coulomb barrier. The finite range can significantly affect the 3 N contribution to the ( d , p ) cross sections. Finite-range studies require new formal developments and, therefore, their contribution is preliminarily assessed within the plane-wave Born approximation, together with sensitivity to the choice of the deuteron model.