Sensitivity of the elastic scattering matrix elements to the range of the inelastic potentials

Abstract

The solution to a system of coupled equations is examined with regard to the effect of the long range part of the inelastic potentials upon the elastic phase shifts. It is found that those parts of the inelastic potentials which occur beyond the range of the elastic to inelastic transition potentials affect the elastic phase shifts in only a minor way. The proof is given theoretically by means of a Green's function formulation which includes the long range part of the inelastic potentials perturbatively. When applied to the calculation of the effect of breakup on the deuteron-nucleus elastic scattering, the argument confirms the finding that errors in the long range part of the potentials in the breakup channels do not sensitively affect the elastic deuteron scattering cross section. This result explains why the elastic scattering is not very sensitive to the choice of the discretization procedure of the breakup space.NUCLEAR REACTIONS Coupled equations, Green's functions, effect of long range inelastic potentials on elastic phase shifts.