The optical model at high energies

MAY 01, 1972

Recent study of field‐theory models is bringing the optical model back into fashion for high‐energy particle scattering. With it we may obtain new insight to nucleon substructure.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3070851

Muhammad M. Islam

For more than two decades physicists have used the optical model to describe the high‐energy scattering of nucleons by nuclei. The motivation underlying the model both in nuclear scattering and in particle scattering is to represent the complex projectile–target interaction by a two‐body complex potential. This makes the optical‐model description somewhat analogous to the propagation of light through a refracting and absorbing medium. The success of such a description in high‐energy nucleon–nucleus scattering is now well established.

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More about the Authors

Muhammad M. Islam. University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn..