Glauber-theory analysis of nuclear reactions on 12C target with variational Monte Carlo wave functions

TL;DR

This paper performs a comprehensive Glauber theory analysis of nuclear reactions involving 12C using variational Monte Carlo wave functions, providing more accurate calculations and assessing the validity of approximate methods against experimental data.

Contribution

It introduces a full Monte Carlo calculation of matrix elements in Glauber theory with realistic wave functions, improving accuracy over approximate methods.

Findings

Full Monte Carlo calculations match experimental data well.

Approximate methods have limitations in accuracy.

Variational Monte Carlo wave functions enhance reaction modeling.

Abstract

The application of Glauber theory has been playing an increasingly important role with the study of unstable or exotic nuclei. Its adaptation to medium and high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is severely limited because one has to evaluate the matrix elements of multiple-scattering operators. The extraction of physical observables has been done using 'approximate' Glauber theory whose validity is hard to evaluate. We perform a full calculation of the matrix elements using Monte Carlo integration and analyze the elastic differential cross sections and the total reaction cross sections for p+12C, 4,6He+12C, and 12C+12C collisions. We use the variational Monte Carlo wave functions for 4,6He and 12C obtained by using realistic two- and three-nucleon potentials. We demonstrate the performance of the Glauber-theory calculations by comparing with available experimental data. We further discuss the accuracy of the conventional approximate methods in the light of the cumulant expansion for Glauber's phase-shift function.