Deuteron Threshold Electrodisintegration

Cross sections for the D(e,e′)pn reaction in the region of the breakup threshold have been measured at the MIT/Bates Linac by a multi-institutional collaboration for 10 < Q2 < 40 fm−2. These measurements extend the previous Saclay data and are in excellent agreement with them in the region of overlap. The present cross sections averaged over 3 MeV from threshold appear to be consistently smaller than recently reported data from SLAC averaged over 10 MeV. None of the measurements shows a minimum in the cross sections for Q2 < 40 fm−2. Some recent potential model calculations appear to be in fair agreement with the data, but the existing calculations based on hybrid quark models appear to be in poor agreement with the data.