Dr. Charlotte Elster, Professor of Physics & Astronomy at Ohio University, gives a Nuclear Seminar on Feb. 4 at Louisiana State University. Her seminar is on “Spin Phenomena in Elastic Scattering of 6He and 8He off Protons.”
Dr. Charlotte Elster
“The calculation and derivation of microscopic optical potentials for calculating scattering observables for elastic scattering from spin-zero nuclei has a long tradition,” she says in her abstract. “So-called microscopic ‘full-folding’ models based on a nuclear density matrix and a fully-off-shell two-nucleon t-matrix have been developed mainly for closed shell nuclei heavier than Oxygen-16. Constructing microscopic optical potential for the Helium-6 isotope poses a two-fold challenge: First, Helium-6 is a loosely bound nucleus consisting of an alpha-core and two valence neutrons. Second, Helium-6 as well as Helium-8 are not closed-shell nuclei.
“To address the first challenge, an optical potential based on the Watson first order multiple scattering ansatz is extended to accommodate the internal dynamics of a cluster model for the Helium-6 nucleus. Differential cross sections and analyzing powers are
calculated for a set of energies, including 71MeV/nucleon and are discussed. In addressing the second challenge, the Watson optical potential has been extended to incorporate the open-shell structure of Helium-6 and Helium-8. Both those effects on the differential cross section and the polarization are discussed.”
Elster is a member of the Ohio University Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics.
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