The art of modeling nuclear reactions with weakly bound nuclei: status and perspectives

TL;DR

This paper reviews theoretical methods for modeling nuclear reactions involving weakly-bound nuclei, emphasizing the CDCC approach, and discusses recent developments, applications, and current research topics in the field.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theoretical formalisms and extensions for weakly-bound nuclear reactions, highlighting the CDCC method and recent advances.

Findings

Emphasizes the importance of the CDCC method and its extensions.

Discusses the role of continuum states in transfer reactions.

Addresses the evaluation of inclusive breakup cross sections.

Abstract

We give an overview of the theoretical description of nuclear reactions involving weakly-bound nuclei. Some of the more widespread reaction formalisms employed in the analysis of these reactions are briefly introduced, including various recent developments. We put special emphasis on the continuum-discretized coupled-channel (CDCC) method and its extensions to incorporate core and target excitations as well as its application to three-body projectiles. The role of the continuum for one-nucleon transfer reactions is also discussed. The problem of the evaluation of inclusive breakup cross sections is addressed within the Ichimura-Austern-Vincent (IAV) model. Other methods, such as those based on a semiclasical description of the scattering process, are also briefly introduced and some of their applications are discussed and a brief discussion on topics of current interest, such as nucleon-nucleon correlations, uncertainty evaluation and non-locality is presented.