Total reaction cross section on a deuteron target and the eclipse effect of the constituent neutron and proton

Abstract

Background: Eclipse effect of the neutron and the proton in a deuteron target is essential to correctly describe high-energy deuteron scattering. The nucleus-deuteron scattering needs information on not only the nucleusproton interaction but also the nucleus-neutron interaction, for which no direct measurement of the nucleusneutron cross sections is available for unstable nuclei. Purpose: We systematically evaluated the total reaction cross sections on a deuteron target to explore the feasibility of extracting the nucleus-neutron interaction from measurable cross sections. Methods: High-energy nucleus-deuteron collision is described by the Glauber model, in which the proton and neutron configuration of the deuteron is explicitly taken into account. Results: Our calculation reproduces available experimental total reaction cross section data on the nucleusdeuteron scattering. The possibility of extracting the nucleus-neutron total reaction cross section from nucleusdeuteron and nucleus-proton total reaction cross sections is explored. The total reaction cross sections on proton, neutron, and deuteron targets can be expressed, to good accuracy, in terms of the nuclear matter radius and the neutron skin thickness. Incident-energy dependence of the total reaction cross sections is examined. Conclusions: The total reaction cross section on a deuteron target includes information on both the nucleusneutron and the nucleus-proton profile functions. Measuring the cross sections by deuteron and proton targets is a promising tool to extract the nuclear size properties.

Constraining equation of state of nuclear matter by charge-changing cross section measurements of mirror nuclei

“…The ρ T p is provided by the δ distribution normalized to unity. A proton target is suggested to be a better choice to extract the nuclear size [74][75][76]. Other targets, like the commonly used carbon target, would complicate the present study of interest due to the additional contribution of neutrons in target nuclei.…”