Polarization effects on heavy-ion scattering in the distorted-wave method

On the basis of an exact formalism for DWBA methods we calculate the distorting potentials to be used in a standard distorted-wave Born approximation for systems with strongly coupled channels. We examine for a practically useful model some simple approximate treatments through comparisons of the polarization potentials in the case of elastic and inelastic ¹⁶O + ¹⁶O scattering. The adiabatic approximation omitting the radial kinetic energy in the propagator is found to lead to satisfactory agreement with the exact coupled-channel cross sections.