Microscopic Optical Potential Research Articles

Microscopic optical potential from the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory: Proton-nucleus scattering

Microscopic optical potential from the relativistic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory: Proton-nucleus scattering

Determination of Nuclear Matter Radii by Means of Microscopic Optical Potentials: The Case of 78\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$^{78}$$\\end{document}Kr

In this work we use microscopic Nucleon–Nucleus Optical Potentials (OP) to analyze elastic scattering data for the differential cross section of the 78\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$^{78}$$\\end{document}Kr (p,p) 78\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$^{78}$$\\end{document}Kr reaction, with the goal of extracting the matter radius and estimating the neutron skin, quantities that are both needed to determine the slope parameter L of the nuclear symmetry energy. Our analysis is performed with the factorized version of the microscopic OP obtained in a previous series of papers within the Watson multiple scattering theory at the first order of the spectator expansion, which is based on the underlying nucleon–nucleon dynamics and is free from phenomenological inputs. Differently from our previous applications, the proton and neutron densities are described with a two-parameter Fermi (2pF) distribution, which makes the extraction of the matter radius easier and allows us to make a meaningful comparison with the original analysis, that was performed with the Glauber model. With standard minimization techniques we performed data analysis and extracted the matter radius and the neutron skin. Our analysis produces a matter radius of Rm(rms)=4.12\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$R_m^{\\mathrm{(rms)}} = 4.12$$\\end{document} fm, in good agreement with previous matter radii extracted from 76\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$^{76}$$\\end{document}Kr and 80\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$^{80}$$\\end{document}Kr, and a neutron skin of ΔRnp≃-0.1\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Delta R_{np} \\simeq - 0.1$$\\end{document} fm, compatible with a previous analysis. Our factorized microscopic OP, supplied with 2pF densities, is a valuable tool to perform the analysis of the experimental differential cross section and extract information such as matter radius and neutron skin. Without any free parameters it provides a reasonably good description of the experimental differential cross section for scattering angles up to ≈\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\approx $$\\end{document} 40 degrees. Compared to the Glauber model our OP can be applied to a wider range of scattering angles and allows one to probe the nuclear systems in a more internal region.

Microscopic optical potentials for medium-mass isotopes derived at the first order of Watson multiple-scattering theory

We perform a first-principles calculation of optical potentials for nucleon elastic scattering off medium-mass isotopes. Fully based on a saturating chiral Hamiltonian, the optical potentials are derived by folding nuclear density distributions computed with self-consistent Green's function theory with a nucleon-nucleon t matrix computed with a consistent chiral interaction. The dependence on the folding interaction as well as the convergence of the target densities are investigated. Numerical results are presented and discussed for differential cross sections and analyzing powers, with focus on elastic proton scattering off calcium and nickel isotopes. Our optical potentials generally show a remarkable agreement with the available experimental data for laboratory energies in the range 65–200 MeV. We study the evolution of the scattering observables with increasing proton-neutron asymmetry by computing theoretical predictions of the cross section and analyzing power over the calcium and nickel isotopic chains. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Application of a microscopic optical potential of chiral effective field theory in (p, d) transfer reactions

Application of a microscopic optical potential of chiral effective field theory in (p, d) transfer reactions

Elastic scattering and total reaction cross sections of 6Li examined via a microscopic continuum discretized coupled-channels model* *Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2067205)

We present a systematic study of 6Li elastic scattering and total reaction cross sections at incident energies around the Coulomb barrier within the continuum discretized coupled-channels (CDCC) framework, where 6Li is treated in an α+d two-body model. Collisions with 27Al, 64Zn, 138Ba, and 208Pa are analyzed. The microscopic optical potentials (MOP) based on Skyrme nucleon-nucleon interaction for α and d are adopted in CDCC calculations and satisfactory agreement with the experimental data is obtained without any adjustment on MOPs. For comparison, α and d global phenomenological optical potentials (GOP) are also used in CDCC analysis and a reduction of no less than 50% on the surface imaginary part of deuteron GOP is required for describing the data. In all cases, the 6Li breakup effect is significant and provides repulsive correction to the folding model potential. The reduction on the surface imaginary part of GOP of deuteron reveals a strong suppression of the reaction probability of deuteron as a component of 6Li when compared with that of a free deuteron. Further investigation is performed by considering the d breakup process equivalently within the dynamic polarization potential approach, and the results show that d behaves in a manner similar to a tightly bound nucleus in 6Li induced reactions.

Towards microscopic optical potentials in deformed nuclei

A microscopic and consistent description of both nuclear structure and reactions is instrumental to extend the predictivity of models calculating scattering observables. In particular, this is crucial in the case of exotic nuclei not yet discovered.In this manuscript, we will present the plan of the Lund effort for a symmetry breaking description of bound and scattering observables using a generator coordinate method model based on an effective Hamiltonian constrained with a (Skyrme) functional. Following this, we will illustrate the steps to construct an optical potential for deformed nuclei from microscopic wavefunctions obtained with projected generator coordinate method from Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov basis.

Imaginary part of microscopic optical potential at negative energies

In this paper, we calculate the diagonal contributions W(R, s = 0) of the imaginary part of the microsopic optical potential at negatives energies, where W(R, s) =Σlj(2j+1)/4π Im∆Σlj(r, r′, ω), with R = 1/2.(r + r′) corresponding to the radius and shape ofIm∆Σ, and s = r - r′. To do it, the microscopic optical potential has been calculatedby using the nuclear structure approach which is based on the Green function method. The coupling between the particle and collective phonon has been performed to calculate the dynamic part of the optical potential. It has been found that the imaginary part at negative energies is very small as expected. The calculated W(R, 0) is maximum on the surface and deacreases to zero in the interior.

Study of6,8He+p elastic scattering using the BHF formalism with three-body forces

In the present work, we have analyzed the elastic scattering data of6He+p at 25.6, 38.6, 40.9, and 71 MeV/A and8He+p at 15.6, 25.6, 32.5, 66, and 72 MeV/A, using the microscopic local optical potential calculated within the framework of the Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (BHF) formalism. The calculation requires mainly two inputs: (1) the nucleon–nucleon (NN) interaction and (2) the nucleon distributions in target nuclei. In the present work, realistic internucleon (NN) potential from Argonne v18 (AV18) and the Urbana IX (UVIX) model of three-body forces with several nucleon density distributions are used for generating the nucleon–nucleus optical potential. We have used the exact method for calculating both the direct and the exchange parts of the spin–orbit potential. We confirm the earlier results that the spin–orbit potential for these neutron-rich nuclei is diffused and extended. Our results show that the different density distributions reproduce rather well the experimental differential cross sections for both isotopes, while the phenomenological density with a two-neutron halo gives satisfactory results for6He-p analyzing power data. None of the densities used for8He can reproduce the experimentally analyzed power data. Our analysis reveals that the calculated microscopic optical potentials, with and without three-body forces using the BHF approach, provide satisfactory agreement with the elastic scattering data for6,8He+p.

Microscopic Optical Potentials: recent achievements and future perspectives

Few years ago we started the investigation of microscopic Optical Potentials (OP) in the framework of chiral effective field theories [1, 2] and published our results in a series of manuscripts. Starting from the very first work [3], where a microscopic OP was introduced following the multiple scattering procedure of Watson [4], and then followed by Refs. [5, 6], where the agreement with experimental data and phenomenological approaches was successfully tested, we finally arrived at a description of elastic scattering processes off non-zero spin nuclei [7]. Among our achievements, it is worth mentioning the partial inclusion of three-nucleon forces [8], and the extension of our OP to antiproton-nucleus elastic scattering [9]. Despite the overall good agreement with empirical data obtained so far, we do believe that several improvements and upgrades of the present approach are still to be achieved.In this short essay we would like to address some of the most relevant achievements and discuss an interesting development that, in our opinion, is needed to further improve microscopic OPs in order to reach in a near future the same level of accuracy of the phenomenological ones.

Cluster folding model analysis of the 7Be+28Si elastic scattering in the near-barrier

In the framework of the optical model, the elastic scattering of the radioactive projectile 7Be on the 28Si target at four energies near the Coulomb barrier has been analyzed. The cluster folding model is used to determine the real part of the nuclear optical potential. For comparison, two microscopic optical potentials have been generated using the DDM3Y effective NN interaction based upon two different forms for 7Be density distribution. All the obtained real potentials, in conjunction with phenomenological Woods-Saxon imaginary parts, have successfully reproduced the elastic scattering angular distributions over the measured angular range. The energy dependence of the real and imaginary strengths that are produced by the best-fit of the experimental data was examined. Neither the usual threshold anomaly nor the breakup threshold anomaly can be observed at the considered energy range. The obtained cross sections have been reduced and compared with earlier theoretical and experimental data of 7Li on the same target near the Coulomb barrier.

On the separability of microscopic optical model potentials and emerging bell-shape Perey–Buck nonlocality

After nearly sixty years since its introduction, the phenomenological bell-shape Perey-Buck spatial nonlocality in the optical model potential for nucleon-nucleus scattering has remained unaccounted for from a microscopic standpoint. In this article we provide a quantitative account for such nonlocality considering fully nonlocal optical potentials in momentum space. The framework is based on a momentum-space in-medium folding model, where infinite nuclear matter $g$ matrices in Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation are folded to the target one-body mixed density. The study is based on chiral next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) as well as Argonne $v_{18}$ nucleon-nucleon bare interaction models. Applications focus on $^{40}$Ca($p,p$) scattering at beam energies in the range 11-200 MeV, resulting in the identification of a separable structure of the momentum-space optical potential of a form we coin as $JvH$, with a nonlocality form factor as one of its terms. The resulting nonlocaliy form factor features a bell-shape with nonlocality range $\beta$ between 0.86 and 0.89 fm, for both proton and neutron beams at energies below 65 MeV. An analytic toy model is introduced to elucidate the underlying mechanism for the nonlocality in the optical model, providing an estimate of its range based on the Fermi motion of the target nucleons and the long-range part of the $NN$ interaction.

Neutron skin of 48Ca deduced from interaction cross-section

The neutron skin thickness of 48Ca was deduced from the interaction cross-section by adopting a microscopic optical potential. The optical potential used was constructed by folding a chiral [Formula: see text] matrix and the Skyrme mean-field densities renormalized by considering the information of the interaction cross-section. The result was [Formula: see text] fm.

Elastic proton scattering off nonzero spin nuclei

In recent years, we constructed a microscopic optical potential (OP) for elastic nucleon-nucleus ($NA$) scattering using modern approaches based on chiral theories for the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interaction. The OP was derived at first order of the spectator expansion in Watson multiple scattering theory and its final expression was a folding integral between the $NN$ $t$ matrix and the nuclear density of the target. Two- and three-body forces are consistently included both in the target and in the projectile description. The purpose of this work is to apply our microscopic OP to nuclei characterized by a ground state of spin-parity quantum numbers $J^\pi \ne 0^+$. We extended our formalism to include the spin of the target nucleus. The full amplitudes of the $NN$ reaction matrix are retained in the calculations starting from two- and three-body chiral forces. We show a remarkable agreement with experimental data for the available observables and, simultaneously, provide reliable estimates for the theoretical uncertainties. This work paves the way toward a full microscopic approach to inelastic $NA$ scattering, showing that the derivation of optical potentials between states with $J^\pi \ne 0^+$ is completely under control.

Global Microscopic Description of Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering with Quantified Uncertainties.

We develop for the first time a microscopic global nucleon-nucleus optical potential with quantified uncertainties suitable for analyzing nuclear reaction experiments at next-generation rare-isotope beam facilities. Within the improved local density approximation and without any adjustable parameters, we begin by computing proton-nucleus and neutron-nucleus optical potentials from a set of five nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory for 1800 target nuclei in the mass range 12≤A≤242 for energies between 0 MeV<E≲150 MeV. We then parameterize a global optical potential for each chiral force that depends smoothly on the projectile energy as well as the target nucleus mass number and isospin asymmetry. Uncertainty bands for elastic scattering observables are generated from a full covariance analysis of the parameters entering in the description of our global optical potential and benchmarked against existing experimental data for stable target nuclei. Since our approach is purely microscopic, we anticipate a similar quality of the model for nucleon scattering on unstable isotopes.

Progress in the microscopic description of nucleon-nucleus elastic scattering at low-energy

In this brief report, we make a short review of progress in developing the microscopic optical potential in recent years. In particular, we present our current studies and plans on building the microscopic optical potential based on the so-called nuclear structure models at low energies.

Impact of three-body forces on elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering observables

In a previous series of papers we investigated the domain of applicability of chiral potentials to the construction of a microscopic optical potential (OP) for elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering. The final expression of the OP was a folding integral between the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) $t$ matrix and the nuclear density of the target. In these calculations $NN$ and three-nucleon ($3N$) chiral interactions were used for the target density and only the $NN$ interaction for the $NN$ $t$ matrix. The purpose of this work is to achieve another step towards the calculation of a more consistent OP introducing the $3N$ force also in the dynamic part of the OP. In the present work this is approximated with a density dependent $NN$ interaction obtained after the averaging over the Fermi sphere. In practice, in our model the $3N$ force acts as a medium correction of the bare $NN$ interaction used to calculate the $NN$ $t$ matrix. Even if the $3N$ force is treated in an approximate way, this method naturally extends our previous model of the OP and allows a direct comparison of our present and previous results. We consider as case studies the elastic scattering of nucleons off $^{12}$C and $^{16}$O. We present results for the differential cross section and the spin observables for different values of the projectile energy. From the comparison with the experimental data and with the results of our previous model we assess the importance of the $3N$ interaction in the dynamic part of the OP. Our analysis indicates that the contribution of the $3N$ force in the $t$ matrix is small for the differential cross section and it is sizable for the spin observables, in particular, for the analyzing power. A chiral expansion order-by-order analysis of the scattering observables confirms the convergence of our results at the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order, as already established in our previous work.

Nuclear Mean-Field Description of Proton Elastic Scattering by \(^{12,13}\)C at Low Energies

Nuclear reactions of proton by light nuclei at low energies play a key role in the study of nucleosynthesis which is of interest in nuclear astrophysics. The most fundamental process which is very necessary is the elastic scattering. In this work, we construct a microscopic proton-nucleus potential in order to describe the differential cross-sections over scattering angles of the proton elastic scattering by \(^{12}\)C and \(^{13}\)C in the range of available energies 14 - 22 MeV. The microscopic optical potential is based on the folding model using the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction CDM3Yn. The results show the promising use of the CDM3Yn interactions at low energies, which were originally used for nuclear reactions at intermediate energies. This could be the premise for the study of nuclear reactions using CDM3Yn interaction in astrophysics at low energies.

Ultraviolet suppression and nonlocality in optical model potentials for nucleon-nucleus scattering

We investigate the role of high momentum components of optical model potentials for nucleon-nucleus scattering and its incidence on their nonlocal structure in coordinate space. The study covers closed-shell nuclei with mass number in the range $4\leq A\leq 208$, for nucleon energies from tens of MeV up to 1 GeV. To this purpose microscopic optical potentials are calculated using density-dependent off-shell $g$ matrices in Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation and based on Argonne $v_{18}$ as well as chiral 2$N$ force up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order. We confirm that the gradual suppression of high-momentum contributions of the optical potential results in quite different coordinate-space counterparts, all of them accounting for the same scattering observables. We infer a minimum cutoff momentum $Q$, function of the target mass number and energy of the process, that filters out irrelevant ultraviolet components of the potential. We find that when ultraviolet suppression is applied to Perey-Buck nonlocal potential or local Woods-Saxon potentials, they also result nonlocal with similar appearance to those obtained from microscopic models in momentum space. We examine the transversal nonlocality, quantity that makes comparable the intrinsic nonlocality of any potential regardless of its representation. We conclude that meaningful comparisons of nonlocal features of alternative potentials require the suppression of their ultraviolet components.

Properties of a separable representation of optical potentials

Background: Separable interactions have a long history in nuclear physics. In the last few years, separable expansions have been used to represent the optical potential between a nucleon (proton or neutron) and a target. Purpose: We explore the non-local properties of these separable optical potentials as well as their convergence behavior. Method: For a couple of cases, we use the generalized Ersnt-Shakin-Thaler scheme to generate separable interactions starting from local optical potentials. We study the variation of the interaction with energy range and rank. Results: We find that, overall the off-diagonal behavior of the converged separable interaction deviates from the Gaussian form assumed by Perey and Buck. However, in the region surrounding the maximum depth the Gaussian form works quite well. Focusing on this region, we study potentials describing neutron elastic scattering on $^{16}$O and $^{48}$Ca for beam energies in the range of $ E=$10-50 MeV and explore several measures of non-locality of the separable interactions. Conclusions: When the energy range considered for generating the separable interaction is $0\le E_{range}\le 50$ MeV, the resulting non-locality is large and target dependent. Contrarily, the nonlocality obtained including larger energy ranges in the separable procedure is independent of the target and other details of the original local potential. We find that, even when including in the expansion many support points with energy ranges $0\le E_{range}\le 2400$ MeV, the resulting potential retains non-local behavior. Connections with microscopic optical potentials as well as other transformations used in the nucleon-nucleon domain are made.

Neutron elastic scattering on calcium isotopes from chiral nuclear optical potentials

We formulate microscopic neutron-nucleus optical potentials from many-body perturbation theory based on chiral two- and three-body forces. The neutron self energy is first calculated in homogeneous matter to second order in perturbation theory, which gives the central real and imaginary terms of the optical potential. The real spin-orbit term is calculated separately from the density matrix expansion using the same chiral interaction as in the self energy. Finally, the full neutron-nucleus optical potential is derived within the improved local density approximation utilizing mean field models consistent with the chiral nuclear force employed. We compare the results of the microscopic calculations to phenomenological models and experimental data up to projectile energies of $E = 200$ MeV. Experimental elastic differential scattering cross sections and vector analyzing powers are generally well reproduced by the chiral optical potential, but we find that total cross sections are overestimated at high energies.