Three-body analysis reveals the significant contribution of minor ^5He s-wave component in ^6Li (p, 2p) ^5He cross section

⁶Li is usually treated as an +p+n three-body system, and the validity of this picture is important for understanding ⁶Li reactions. The (p, 2p) reaction is a powerful method to study the structure of valence nucleons in ⁶Li. Recently, the new experimental data of the ^6Li (p, 2p) ^5He reaction have been obtained and should be analyzed. We investigate the ^6Li (p, 2p) ^5He reaction using the +p+n three-body wave function of ⁶Li and study the validity of this model. The ⁶Li wave function is used to obtain the relative wave function between p and ⁵He. We combine the relative wave function with the distorted wave impulse approximation. Our results reproduce the experimental data of the triple differential cross section within about 10\% difference in the absolute values, and contributions from both p- and s-wave states of ⁵He in ⁶Li are found to be important. We can qualitatively understand the ^6Li (p, 2p) ^5He reaction by describing ⁶Li with the three-body model. Contribution from the s-wave component is important in reproducing the experimental data in the zero recoil-momentum region.