Interference in the unitarity relation in few-body dynamics

The various terms present in the unitarity relation for elastic and inelastic nucleon-nucleon scattering are studied in a three-body model. Because of the three-body dynamics one can determine a special interference term contributing to the total cross section. This interference term can be positive or negative. The explicit calculation of this term may serve as a check on three-body calculations. It also provides a measure of the actual importance of three-body dynamics in a particular model. (author)