Separable Representation of Multichannel Nucleon-Nucleus Optical Potentials

TL;DR

This paper develops a separable, energy-dependent multichannel optical potential model for neutron and proton scattering, enabling more accurate three-body reaction calculations in nuclear physics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel separable, energy-dependent multichannel optical potential representation that exactly fulfills reciprocity, improving modeling of nuclear reactions involving excitations.

Findings

Constructed separable representations for neutron and proton scattering from $^{12}$C.

Validated the approach for energies from 0 to 50 MeV.

Enhanced the accuracy of reaction modeling in nuclear physics.

Abstract

One important ingredient for many applications of nuclear physics to astrophysics, nuclear energy, and stockpile stewardship are cross sections for reactions of neutrons with rare isotopes. Since direct measurements are often not feasible, indirect methods, e.g. (d,p) reactions, should be used. Those (d,p) reactions may be viewed as three-body reactions and described with Faddeev techniques. Faddeev equations in momentum space have a long tradition of utilizing separable interactions in order to arrive at sets of coupled integral equations in one variable. Optical potentials representing the effective interactions in the neutron (proton) nucleus subsystem are usually non-Hermitian as well as energy-dependent. Including excitations of the nucleus in the calculation requires a multichannel optical potential. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a separable, energy-dependent multichannel representation of complex, energy-dependent optical potentials that contain excitations of the nucleus and that fulfill reciprocity exactly. Momentum space Lippmann-Schwinger integral equations are solved with standard techniques to obtain the form factors for the separable representation. Starting from energy-dependent multichannel optical potentials for neutron and proton scattering from $^{12}$C, separable representations based on a generalization of the Ernst-Shakin-Thaler (EST) scheme are constructed which fulfill reciprocity exactly. Applications to n$+^{12}$C and p$+^{12}$C scattering are investigated for energies from 0 to 50~MeV.