Microscopic derivation of classical equations of motion for many-particle systems

Abstract

The effects of the internal structure on the classical description of scattering systems consisting of large composite particles are studied. For elastic scattering, the Pauli principle leads to a modification of the double folding potential and of the reduced mass at small distances. For inelastic scattering, the possibility of internal excitation leads to a friction term proportional to the velocity in the classical equation of motion. The magnitude of the friction term is shown to depend on the transition probabilities to excited states. So a microscopic basis is provided for the equations used for the description of heavy-ion scattering. Finally, the formalism is applied to calculations of the line-widths of giant dipole resonances in nuclei.