Experimental study of the reaction π+ + d → p + p at pion momenta between 0.48 and 1.16 GeV/c

The differential cross section (DCS) for the reaction π+d → pp has been measured in the incident momentum range from 0.48 to 1.16 GeV/c at seven c.m. angles between 6.4 and 61 degrees. The present experiment clarifies a detailed behavior of the DCS at these c.m. angles as a function of incident momentum. The data are compared with other experiments and also with one-pion-exchange model. It is found that an agreement of our data with others is generally good at large angles, whereas the DCS as cos theta = 0.99 is in disagreement with the theoretical curve. The measured DCS's are expanded in a series of Legendre polynomials of even order. The result shows that the 4-th and 6-th order coefficients have a remarkable structure in the vicinity of 700 MeV/c. This structure may be taken as a strong evidence for the dibaryon resonance 1G4(2430), which has been suggested by earlier experiments on elastic πd and pp scattering. (author)