Total reaction cross section on a deuteron target and the eclipse effect of the constituent neutron and proton

TL;DR

This study uses the Glauber model to analyze total reaction cross sections on deuteron targets, demonstrating that combined measurements can reveal neutron and proton nuclear interactions and size properties, especially for unstable nuclei.

Contribution

The paper systematically evaluates the feasibility of extracting nucleus-neutron interactions from measurable cross sections using deuteron targets, advancing nuclear reaction analysis methods.

Findings

The model reproduces experimental cross section data accurately.

Cross sections can be expressed in terms of nuclear matter radius and neutron skin.

Energy dependence of cross sections is characterized.

Abstract

Background: Eclipse effect of the neutron and proton in a deuteron target is essential to correctly describe high-energy deuteron scattering. The nucleus-deuteron scattering needs information not only on the nucleus-proton but also the nucleus-neutron interaction, for which no direct measurement of the nucleus-neutron cross sections is available for unstable nuclei. Purpose: We systematically evaluated the total reaction cross sections by a deuteron target to explore the feasibility of extracting the nucleus-neutron interaction from measurable cross sections. Methods: High-energy nucleus-deuteron collision is described by the Glauber model, in which the proton and neutron configuration of the deuteron is explicitly taken into account. Results: Our calculation reproduces available experimental total reaction cross section data on the nucleus-deuteron scattering. The possibility of extracting the nucleus-neutron total reaction cross section from nucleus-deuteron and nucleus-proton total reaction cross sections is explored. The total reaction cross sections of a nucleus by proton, neutron, and deuteron targets can be expressed, to good accuracy, in terms of the nuclear matter radius and neutron skin thickness. Incident-energy dependence of the total reaction cross sections is examined. Conclusions: The total reaction cross section on a deuteron target includes information on both the nucleus-neutron and nucleus-proton profile functions. Measuring the cross sections by deuteron and proton targets is a promising tool to extract the nuclear size properties.