Deuteron breakup in the Δ-isobar region

The pd → npp charge exchange reaction has been studied at 1.15 GeV incident proton energy in a selected kinematical region. The distributions of two-proton invariant mass Mpp, of angle of a single proton and the differential cross section dσ/dt of the (p, n) reaction are presented and compared with model predictions corrected for the acceptance of the experimental apparatus. We see no evidence of narrow (Γ < 30 MeV/c2) peaks in the Mpp interval 2.1-2.3 GeV/c2. The production of an intermediate Δ isobar in the primary (p, n) charge exchange and its subsequent absorption in a final state ΔN → pp process together with the background from quasi-free charge exchange scattering reasonably reproduces the general trends of the data.