Optical potential parameters of light nuclear fusion based on precise Coulomb wave functions

Abstract

Based on precise Coulomb wave functions (CWFs), we attempt to calculate the fusion cross sections of light nuclei in a complex spherical square-well nuclear potential (i.e., optical potential model). Comparing with experimental benchmark cross section data, we can calibrate optical potential parameters associated with D+D, D+T, D+He3, p+D, p+Li6 and p+Li7 fusion reactions. Surprisingly, we find that our calculated optical potential parameters are quite different from those of many previous results (e.g., Li et al. (2000) [9], Singh et al. (2019) [14], etc.), in which approximate Coulomb wave functions (ACWFs) with only retaining the leading terms are exploited for the continuity conditions at the radius of nuclear potential. Furthermore, with the obtained optical potential parameters, we compare the fusion cross sections and astrophysical S-factors with that formulated from ACWFs approach, and also find apparent deviations especially for the fusion reactions with resonance peaks such as D+T and D+He3 fusion reactions. We then calculate the phase diagrams of the fusion cross sections with respect to the optical potential parameters and demonstrate several narrow shape resonance belts. It implies that a small deviation of ACWFs from the exact CWFs at nuclear radius might lead to fall off the resonance regimes and therefore causes the big difference on the optical parameters as well as the cross sections.