Three-body description of direct nuclear reactions: Comparison with the continuum discretized coupled channels method

TL;DR

This paper compares the continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) method to exact three-body Faddeev equations, assessing their accuracy for various nuclear reactions involving deuterons and exotic nuclei.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison between CDCC and Faddeev solutions, highlighting the conditions under which CDCC is a good approximation or may miss important three-body effects.

Findings

CDCC accurately approximates Faddeev solutions for some reactions

CDCC may miss dynamic three-body effects in exotic nuclei

The comparison helps define the applicability limits of CDCC

Abstract

The continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) method is compared to the exact solution of the three-body Faddeev equations in momentum space. We present results for: i) elastic and breakup observables of d-12C at E_d=56 MeV, ii) elastic scattering of d-58Ni at E_d=80 MeV, and iii) elastic, breakup and transfer observables for 11Be+p at E_{11Be}/A=38.4 MeV. Our comparative studies show that, in the first two cases, the CDCC method is a good approximation to the full three-body Faddeev solution, but for the 11Be exotic nucleus, depending on the observable or the kinematic regime, it may miss out some of the dynamic three-body effects that appear through the explicit coupling to the transfer channel.