On the spin-orbit deformation in inelastic scattering of polarized protons at intermediate energy

Coupled-channel analyses of both cross-sections and analysing-power data have been performed for low-lying states for 16,18O(p→,p') at 0.8 GeV and 12C(p→,p') obtained for an energy range between 398 MeV and 697 MeV to study the importance of the deformed spin-orbit potential. The angular distributions of Ay are very well reproduced only with a full Thomas spin-orbit potential. The calculations for 16O and 18O data have shown that the deformed spin-orbit term has only minor effect on the inelastic angular distributions and for Ay these calculations strongly suggest that the central and the spin-orbit deformations should be equal. On the other hand, a different behaviour is observed for 12C(p→,p'): first, the presence of the deformed spin-orbit term is essential to reproduce not only analysing-power data, but also inelastic angular distributions and secondly, for all energies investigated the deformation of the spin-orbit potential should be greater then that of the central potential