Dirac Phenomenology for Deuteron Elastic Scattering

Abstract

A relativistic description of deuteron elastic scattering based on a two-particle Dirac Hamiltonian containing phenomenological nucleon-nucleus Dirac potentials is developed. The resulting effective central potential is like that obtained with a folding model based on the Schrödinger equation; the spin-orbit potential, however, is only one-half as strong. Dirac and Schrödinger fits to 80-MeV $d$+${}_{}{}^{58}{}_{}{}^{}\mathrm{Ni}$ data with potentials consistent with nucleon-nucleus phenomenology are of comparable quality.