Theoretical Optical Potential Derived From Nucleon-Nucleon Chiral Potentials

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of chiral nucleon-nucleon potentials to construct a microscopic optical potential for elastic proton scattering, demonstrating promising results at energies above 500 MeV and highlighting future potential with many-body forces.

Contribution

It introduces a method to derive optical potentials from chiral two-body forces and tests their applicability in elastic scattering simulations.

Findings

High-energy chiral potentials reproduce scattering data well

Optical potential construction aligns with Chiral Perturbation Theory

Potential for incorporating many-body forces in future models

Abstract

Background: Elastic scattering is probably the main event in the interactions of nucleons with nuclei. Even if this process has been extensively studied in the last years, a consistent description, i.e. starting from microscopic two- and many-body forces connected by the same symmetries and principles, is still under development. Purpose: In this work we study the domain of applicability of microscopic two-body chiral potentials in the construction of an optical potential. Methods: We basically follow the KMT approach to build a microscopic complex optical potential and then we perform some test calculations on 16O at different energies. Results: Our conclusion is that a particular set of potentials with a Lippmann-Schwinger cutoff at relatively high energies (above 500 MeV) has the best performances reproducing the scattering observables. Conclusions: Our work shows that building an optical potential within Chiral Perturbation Theory is a promising approach to the description of elastic proton scattering, in particular, in view of the future inclusion of many-body forces that naturally arise in such framework.