Effective Range Expansion for Describing a Virtual State

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates elastic scattering using the Schrödinger equation for various potentials, analyzing phase shifts and effective range expansion to identify virtual states and improve low-energy scattering descriptions.

Contribution

It extends the effective range expansion to include higher-order terms up to (k^{10}) for better virtual state characterization in neutron-nucleon scattering.

Findings

Virtual states identified in neutron scattering data.

Higher-order (k^{10}) terms improve the effective range expansion.

Method applicable to different central potentials.

Abstract

I present numerical study of an elastic scattering by solving second order differential equations of Schroedinger Equation for some types of central potential (eg. square well, Yukawa, and Woods-Saxon) to find the wave function inside the potential, and extending the solution with the region outside the range of potential. The wave function outside the range of potential can be expanded in terms of spherical bessel and neumann function. At the boundary, logarithmic derivative is found which becomes a base to compute the phase shift. Once we have a phase shift, the scattering amplitude can then be expanded in terms of polynomial legendre, and the differential cross section can be deduced. Furthermore, the scattering at low energies is studied and the connection to the effective range expansion is discussed to determine the scattering length and effective radius. The signature of the virtual state from the scattering of $1$ neutron from $11$ nucleons are found for each potential and the energies are best described by the inclusion of the $\mathcal{O}(k^{10})$ in the effective range expansion.