More than 50 years ago, in 1934, Chadwick and Goldhaber (ChG 34) published a paper entitled "A 'Nuclear Photo-effect' Disintegration of the Diplon by -y-Rays."l in the introduction: They noted "By analogy with the excitation and ionisation of atoms by light, one might expect that any complex nucleus should be excited or 'ionised', that is, disintegrated, by -y-rays of suitable energy," and furthermore: "Heavy hydrogen was chosen as the element first to be examined, because the diplon has a small mass defect and also because it is the simplest of all nuclear systems and its properties are as important in nuclear theory as the hydrogen is in atomic theory." Almost at the same time, in 1935, the first theoretical paper on the photodisinte gration of the deuteron entitled "Quantum theory of the diplon" by Bethe and Peierls (BeP 35) appeared. It is not without significance that these two papers mark the be ginning of photonuclear physics in general and emphasize in particular the special role the two-body system has played in nuclear physics since then and still plays. A steady flow of experimental and theoretical papers on deuteron photo disintegration and its inverse reaction, n-p capture, shows the continuing interest in this fundamental process (see fig. 1.1)."

More than 50 years ago, in 1934, Chadwick and Goldhaber (ChG 34) published a paper entitled "A 'Nuclear Photo-effect' Disintegration of the Diplon by -y-Rays."l in the introduction: They noted "By analogy with the excitation and ionisation of atoms by light, one might expect that any complex nucleus should be excited or 'ionised', that is, disintegrated, by -y-rays of suitable energy," and furthermore: "Heavy hydrogen was chosen as the element first to be examined, because the diplon has a small mass defect and also because it is the simplest of all nuclear systems and its properties are as important in nuclear theory as the hydrogen is in atomic theory." Almost at the same time, in 1935, the first theoretical paper on the photodisinte gration of the deuteron entitled "Quantum theory of the diplon" by Bethe and Peierls (BeP 35) appeared. It is not without significance that these two papers mark the be ginning of photonuclear physics in general and emphasize in particular the special role the two-body system has played in nuclear physics since then and still plays. A steady flow of experimental and theoretical papers on deuteron photo disintegration and its inverse reaction, n-p capture, shows the continuing interest in this fundamental process (see fig. 1.1)."

For the first time, a complete calculation of all 288 polarization observables of deuteron photodisintegration for polarized photons and an oriented deuteron target is presented for energies below +-production threshold. The observables are calculated within a nonrelativistic framework but with inclusion of lowest-order relativistic effects. Explicit meson exchange currents and isobar configurations as manifestation of subnuclear degrees of freedom are included in the calculation. The sensitivity of the various polarization observables with respect to subnuclear degrees of freedom, to electric and magnetic multipole contributions and to a variety of realistic potential models are systematically investigated. Thus this atlas provides the most detailed and systematic survey on polarization observables of this important process. It allows to analyse the different dynamical properties of the np-system as contained in the various observables and, therefore, will be useful for both theoretical studies and for the planning and evaluation of experiments as well. It serves in addition as an important supplement to the recent general review on deuteron photodisintegration by A. Arenhovel and M. Sanzone (Few-Body Systems, Suppl. 3)."

Sponsored by Comitato Nazionale Energia Nucleare, Research Dep. RIT