Light projectile elastic scattering by nuclei described by the Gogny interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates elastic scattering of light nuclei by heavy targets using an extended Watanabe model with microscopic optical potentials derived from the Gogny force, comparing results with experimental data and other models.

Contribution

It introduces a semi-microscopic approach to calculate nucleon-nucleus optical potentials using the Gogny force within the extended Watanabe model for light projectile scattering.

Findings

Angular distributions match experimental data well.

Reaction cross-sections are accurately predicted.

Model limitations are discussed.

Abstract

In this work, we study the elastic scattering of some light particles, such as $^2$H, $^3$H, $^3$He, and $^4$He, by heavy target nuclei with an extended Watanabe model, which uses as input the neutron-nucleus and proton-nucleus optical potentials and the ground-state wave functions of the projectile. The nucleon-nucleus optical potential used in this work was obtained within a semi-microscopic nuclear matter approach, whose real and imaginary parts are provided by the first and second-order terms, respectively, of the Taylor expansion of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock mass operator obtained with the reaction G-matrix built up with the Gogny force \cite{lopez21}. The angular distributions of the scattering of $^2$H, $^3$H, $^3$He, and $^4$He from different target nuclei and at a different incident energy of the projectile computed with this model are analyzed. The reaction cross-sections corresponding to some of these scattering processes are also calculated. Our results are compared with the experimental values as well as with another Watanabe calculation where the nucleon-nucleus the optical potential is provided by the phenomenological K\"oning-Delaroche model. The limitations of the extended Watanabe model used in this work are also discussed.