# Ab initio optical potentials and nucleon scattering on medium mass nuclei

## TL;DR

This paper develops ab initio optical potentials using SCGF theory to accurately predict neutron scattering on medium mass nuclei, benchmarking against NCSMC calculations and highlighting the importance of target excitations.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel ab initio method for deriving optical potentials for medium mass nuclei, incorporating target excitations for improved scattering predictions.

## Key findings

- Satisfactory agreement with experimental scattering data at low energies
- Benchmarking shows virtual excitations are essential for accurate high-energy predictions
- Advances the derivation of optical potentials for complex many-body nuclear systems

## Abstract

We derive ab initio optical potentials from self-consistent Green's function (SCGF) theory and compute the elastic scattering of neutrons off oxygen and calcium isotopes. The comparison with scattering data is satisfactory at low scattering energies. The method is benchmarked against no-core shell model with continuum (NCSMC) calculations, showing that virtual excitations of the target are crucial to predict proper fragmentation and absorption at higher energies. This is a significant step toward deriving optical potentials for medium mass nuclei and complex many-body systems in general.