Nuclear charge and matter distributions

Abstract

The radial distributions of the nuclear charge and nuclear matter, or equivalently of the neutrons and protons, are among the most basic of nuclear properties. Substantial advances in our knowledge of these distributions have been made in recent years, both experimental and theoretical. Experimentally, the accurate measurements of the differential cross-sections for electron elastic scattering and of the energies of muonic atom transitions, analysed by model-independent techniques, have given very precise charge distributions for many nuclei. At the same time, the elastic scattering of energetic protons by nuclei have been analysed by the Glauber theory and by the optical potential method of Kerman, McManus and Thaler to yield nuclear matter distributions of somewhat lower accuracy.