Dispersion relation analyses of the energy dependence of the optical potential

Abstract

The various attempts made to separate the spurious energy dependence of the empirical optical potential from the dynamical one by using a dispersion relation for the theoretical optical potential are reviewed in the light of a recent calculation of the mass operator in the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation. The non-relativistic and relativistic treatments are compared and their implications are pointed out. A comparison between the calculations based on the dispersion relation and those based on the nucleon-nucleon scattering amplitude is also made.