Systematic Matter and Binding-Energy Distributions from a Dispersive Optical Model Analysis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a comprehensive nonlocal dispersive optical model analysis across multiple nuclei, revealing insights into binding energies, neutron skins, and the effectiveness of combined scattering and structural data fits.

Contribution

It presents the first systematic dispersive optical model analysis using both bound-state and scattering data for various isotopes, linking nuclear structure with scattering observations.

Findings

Half the nuclear binding energy is in the most-bound 10% of nucleons.

Neutron skin thickness is influenced by asymmetry, Coulomb, and shell effects.

Simultaneous fits improve constraints on nuclear structural quantities.

Abstract

We present the first systematic nonlocal dispersive optical model analysis using both bound-state and scattering data of $^{16,18}$O, $^{40,48}$Ca, $^{58,64}$Ni, $^{112,124}$Sn, and $^{208}$Pb. In all systems, roughly half the total nuclear binding energy is associated with the most-bound 10% of the total nucleon density. The extracted neutron skins reveal the interplay of asymmetry, Coulomb, and shell effects on the skin thickness. Our results indicate that simultaneous optical model fits of inelastic scattering and structural data on isotopic pairs are effective for constraining asymmetry-dependent nuclear structural quantities otherwise difficult to observe experimentally.