Brueckner-Hartree-Fock-based optical potential for proton-4 ^,6^,8He and proton-6^,7^,9 ^,11Li scattering

Proton-nucleus scattering provides a useful tool to determine either the parameters entering in the assumed shape of the neutron distribution or to test the reliability of the theoretically calculated neutron distributions in the target nuclei. We have used the Bethe-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach to calculate the optical potential for analyzing the experimental observables (e.g., differential cross section and polarization) for p-4^,6 ^,8He and p-6^,7^,9^,11Li scattering. The calculation requires mainly two inputs: (1) the nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction and (2) the nucleon distributions in target nuclei. Various local realistic internucleon (NN) potentials such as Reid93, Urbana v-14, and Argonne v-18 along with several model nucleon density distributions are employed in generating the nucleon-nucleus optical potential. We study the sensitivity of the calculated physical observables on the NN interaction and the density distributions used. It is observed that all the NN interactions and also the different density distributions reproduce rather well the experimental differential cross sections while the calculated polarization is more sensitive to the NN interaction and also to the density distribution used. Thus the polarization data can be used as an additional constraint on the determination of nucleon (especially neutron) density distributions in nuclei. Some results of the representative cases highlighting these features are presented and discussed in detail for illustration.