Optical potentials in nuclear physics

Optical potentials play a central role in the theoretical description of processes like, e.g., direct nuclear reactions and neutron capture rates. Direct reactions, such as nucleon transfer, knockout, inelastic excitation, etc., have been at the basis of our understanding of nuclear structure since the advent of the first particle accelerators, and will continue to be at the center of FRIB activities. 

In order to fully exploit the information obtained from FRIB experimental results since its first day of operation, it is pressing to foster the development of reliable optical potentials to be used far from nuclear stability, beyond the reach of current standard implementations and to quantify the theoretical uncertainty associated to optical potentials.

The present page is one deliverable of the FRIB-TA topical program on Optical potentials in nuclear physics, held at FRIB in March 2022, which aimed at

• Reviewing the existing strategies to derive optical potentials, and the underlying associated structure theory approaches.

• Assessing the reliability and ranges of validity of the different approaches, as a function of beam energies and mass numbers. 

• Making recommendations concerning the future developments, and provide a road map both for the derivation of the new generation of optical potentials and the associated uncertainty quantification.

The workshop leads to the production of a whitepaper [C. Hebborn et al J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 50 060501 (2023)] , addressing these three goals.

This page hosts the existing resources, tools and codes, for the development of optical potentials, uncertainty quantification, and their integration in specific applications. We asked the participants of the FRIB-TA program to share, whenever  possible, resources on this website.  If you were not a participant of the program but would like your work to be listed on this page,  you can contact Chloë Hebborn (hebborn@frib.msu.edu).