Optical potentials: Why do we care? How do we construct them? What are the current frontiers?

par Chloë Hebborn (IJClab)

mardi 3 févr. 2026, 10:30 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

100/0-A018 - Salle Library (IJCLab)

Accurate predictions for nuclear reactions involving nuclei over the whole nuclear chart are essential to refine our comprehension of nucleosynthesis and to interpret experimental studies of nuclear structure. Theoretically, first-principles theories of nuclear reactions, which treat all nucleons as active particles, are computationally expensive and restricted to light projectiles and targets and low beam energies. Usually, one simplifies the reaction process to a few-body problem, treating both the projectile and the target as composed of one or more clusters of nucleons, and uses effective interactions called optical potentials. Optical potentials are therefore ubiquitous in nuclear physics, since they are used for a wide range of applications from fundamental science discoveries to astrophysics to nuclear energy and security.  In this talk, I will briefly discuss the application of optical potentials, review the frameworks used to construct them, and present recent progress. I will particularly highlight publicly available tools for performing reaction calculations. Finally, I will present current open challenges and mention current efforts I am involved in.