In order to establish links between p-wave pion production in nucleon-nucleon collisions and low energy three-nucleon scattering, an extensive programme of experiments on pion production is currently underway at COSY-ANKE. The final proton pair is de
tected at very low excitation energy, leading to an S-wave diproton, denoted here as {pp}_s. We now report on measurements of the differential cross section and analysing power of the pol{p}p->{pp}_s pi^0$ reaction at 353 MeV. Both observables can be described in terms of s- and d-wave pion production and, by using the phase information from elastic pp scattering, unique solutions can be obtained for the corresponding amplitudes. This information is vital for the partial wave decomposition of the corresponding pn->{pp}_s pi^- reaction and hence for the extraction of the p-wave terms.
Hard bremsstrahlung production in proton-proton collisions has been studied with the ANKE spectrometer at COSY-Juelich in the energy range of 353-800 MeV by detecting the final proton pair {pp}_s from the pp -> {pp}_s reaction with very low excitatio
n energy. Differential cross sections were measured at small diproton c.m. angles from 0 to 20 degrees and the average over this angular interval reveals a broad peak at a beam energy around 650 MeV with a FWHM of about 220 MeV, suggesting the influence of Delta(1232)N intermediate states. Comparison with deuteron photodisintegration shows that the cross section for diproton production is up to two orders of magnitude smaller, due largely to differences in the selection rules.
