Separable Optical Potentials for (d,p) Reactions

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to represent neutron- and proton-nucleus optical potentials in a separable form using Coulomb distorted basis, facilitating more accurate and efficient calculations of (d,p) reactions involving heavy nuclei.

Contribution

It introduces a separable representation of optical potentials in Coulomb distorted basis for (d,p) reactions, enabling better treatment of Coulomb effects in nuclear reaction calculations.

Findings

Derived a separable form of optical potentials.

Computed Coulomb distorted form factors in the new basis.

Improved the modeling of (d,p) reactions with heavy nuclei.

Abstract

An important ingredient for applications of nuclear physics to e.g. astrophysics or nuclear energy are the cross sections for reactions of neutrons with rare isotopes. Since direct measurements are often not possible, indirect methods like (d,p) reactions must be used instead. Those (d,p) reactions may be viewed as effective three-body reactions and described with Faddeev techniques. An additional challenge posed by (d,p) reactions involving heavier nuclei is the treatment of the Coulomb force. To avoid numerical complications in dealing with the screening of the Coulomb force, recently a new approach using the Coulomb distorted basis in momentum space was suggested. In order to implement this suggestion, one needs not only to derive a separable representation of neutron- and proton-nucleus optical potentials, but also compute the Coulomb distorted form factors in this basis.